Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 60 Two Days?!

Phantom watched from the roof of a nearby building as Edward rallied the soldiers. “He should have it handled.” He said to himself and headed for the clock tower. Once there he looked around for Marie but couldn’t see her, not that that wasn’t expected, so he took a seat on the edge of the roof. As he looked around he saw a collapsed building from the ground tremor and Alexander passed out on the roof of the Adventurers’ Guild. “This could have been a lot worse.” He idly thought aloud to himself.

“Yes, it could have.” Marie replied as she appeared next to him. “Thank you.”

Phantom smirked. “Anytime, Teach.”

“You know who I am, you don’t have to call me that anymore.” Marie told him.

“I’m not calling you ‘Assassin of a Thousand Faces’. It’s too much of a mouthful.” He said casually.

“You can call me Marie.” She offered. “I think you’ve earned it.”

Phantom shrugged. “I think I’ll stick to calling you ‘Teach’ if that’s okay.”

Marie was silent for a long moment. “It makes me feel old.” She confided in him. Phantom burst out laughing. Marie punched him in the arm and he almost fell off the clock tower. His laughter only intensified. “Bastard.” She called him.

“Ha, I, hahahaha, I can’t, haha, Marie, you’re twice my age ya know?” Phantom replied through his laughter.

Marie scowled at him and shoved him off the clock tower. Phantom’s laughter abruptly cut off as he twisted in mid air and threw his grappling hook up to the edge. It caught easily enough and he slowed his descent to a stop over the course of half a dozen feet to make sure the hook wouldn’t carve up the rooftop. He pulled himself back up over the ledge still chuckling to himself. “Don’t push your luck.” She warned him.

“Yes ma’am.” He replied seriously but the smirk on his face still bled through clearly enough for Marie to scowl at him. “How’s the dukeling and duchess?”

“He is the heir to your home territory.” Marie reminded him. “You should refer to him with some level of respect.”

“I will when he has earned it.” Phantom said casually. “Are they unpacking?”

Marie nodded. “I’ve been in contact with Sera this entire time.” She explained. “Why did you come back here?”

“To find someone to talk to while I wait for you-know-who to come back.” Phantom explained.

“You’d have better luck finding your brother. They won’t be back for a while. Not unless someone goes and gets them and well,” Marie gestured towards where multiple mages were sitting and meditating together. “I wouldn’t expect that anytime soon.”

—

Marie was right. It was not anytime soon. Isaac and Lenna had waded through so many skeletons that they had lost count. Shamsha’s Starfall hadn’t destroyed nearly as many skeletons as either of the pair would have wanted. Miles upon miles of skeletons were wiped out as the pair cleaved a path through them towards home. Neither of them had any idea how long it had been by the time they reached the end of the tunnel that led to Safeharbor’s cavern.

“Hey, it’s still standing at least.” Isaac said as they continued carving through the undead.

“It’s almost empty out here.” Lenna observed. “Safeharbor must’ve cleaned most of them out already.”

As correct as Lenna’s observation was, they couldn’t really feel the difference in enemy density. The massive amount of noise the pair were making only served to pull in more and more skeletons. “How many should we say we killed?” Isaac asked her.

“A hundred thousand.” Lenna replied as she broke another skeleton with another skeleton. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.”

“Did, did you lose track of time?” Isaac wondered.

“No.” Lenna said defensively. “Maybe a little.”

“Take a guess then.” Isaac told her.

“A day or so?” Lenna replied.

“Or so?” Isaac requested clarification.

“Well, it took us thirteen hours to get there.” Lenna explained. “And we were running. We’ve been walking most of the way back at, three miles per hour maybe? The first part of our return trip was empty so we could run. We’ve walked maybe half of it.”

“We’ve been gone for two days?!” Isaac exclaimed. After the first two hours of fighting they had fallen into a trance and simply cut down skeletons with every step forwards for the last sixty miles or so.

Lenna shrugged. “That sounds right.” She gestured towards Safeharbor. “It looks like the way should be clear once we get through these. Want to run back?”

Isaac shook his head. “No. We have a reputation to uphold. We’ll just keep killing everything that gets too close. We’ve already been gone this long, what is another hour or two?”

Lenna nodded in agreement. “How is your gear holding up?” She asked him.

“It’s fine.” Isaac said and inspected his sword while three floating spears made of shadows formed and punched through the closest undead’s heads. “It needs sharpening but the enchantments are doing a great job of preventing most of the wear and tear.”

“What about the armor?” Lenna wondered. She had noticed his floppy pauldron a long time ago and was surprised that it was still hanging on.

“The skeletons can’t damage it. Shamsha banged it up a bit though.” Isaac stated the obvious. “Seriously though, how many skeletons do you think we’ve killed? How many skeletons do you think he summoned?”

“I think a hundred thousand is probably accurate and ten per two seconds for a day or so.” Lenna offered. “That was about how fast they were coming out of the portal.”

“How did he maintain control over so many of them?” Isaac wondered. “That’s over four hundred thousand skeletons.”

“It probably wasn’t that many.” Lenna corrected. “But it was a lot. And he probably had some runic array set up or something inside that demiplane his portal went to.”

“How do you know it was a demiplane? And, aside from the obvious, what is a demiplane?” Isaac questioned.

“It looked too fake inside to be anything else. You can usually tell when the entire thing is fabricated via magic.” Lenna replied. “It is the obvious.” Lenna explained. “It is a diminutive plane of existence summoned, created, and controlled via magic.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to get into it?” Isaac wondered.

“Alexander probably can, given enough time and protection. It probably has good loot inside.” Lenna replied.

“Where could he have gotten all of those skeletons to reanimate in the first place though, like how long would he have been collecting corpses from battlefields to have half a million skeletons to throw at us?” Isaac questioned. “It just doesn’t seem plausible.”

“The last dragon surge.” Lenna explained. “He probably just cleaned up battlefields after humans and elves got massacred by dragons. For humans it always seems like the dragon surge was ancient history but elves usually have their first or second child around the time they turn three hundred. If each generation is that long then it has only been a little more than four generations since the last dragon surge. It could be more or less but you get the point. For us, it wasn’t really that long ago.”

“Huh.” Isaac replied. “For humans it’s about twenty years on average right? So that is something like sixty four generations. It was twelve hundred and eighty years ago or so right?”

Lenna nodded. “Yes to both.” She answered him. “We should have another seven to twelve hundred years of safety. Maybe longer if the humans on the plains keep killing each other en masse.”

“Because it goes by population.” Isaac remembered.

Lenna nodded in affirmation. “Yes.”

—

“They’re back!” A soldier on watch yelled. The immediate reaction from everyone nearby was to shush him and scowl at the boy. They had silenced the clock tower because the last time it had rung it called a thousand skeletons towards the city. Everyone was doing their best to keep the noise levels down until Safeharbor’s fighting force had enough time to rest and recuperate. Once everyone was ready they would start the real clean up operation. Even though the skeletons weren’t under anyone’s direct control anymore they were still a threat in their massive numbers.

“Send for the Duke and Guild Master.” Sergeant Thomson ordered a nearby messenger. “Tell them they have returned and are bringing with them the rest of the undead.” The messenger nodded and took off in a run. “Get every off duty guardsman you can find up here with every blessed arrow and bolt we have left.” He ordered another messenger. “And find a healer just in case.” He added and took Edward’s position above the gate. Once the Guild Master or Duke arrived he would cede the position but until then he was the most experienced, highest rank, guardsman on duty. “Raise the gate five feet and lock it.” He ordered the pair that operated the gate’s winch. “Get ready to slam it as soon as they are inside.”