The Dark Lord of Crafting

The solidity of my suit meant that it was easy to breathe, even beneath an ever-growing pile of overzealous soldiers. Their sheer number, and lack of coordination, meant that it was nearly impossible for the men at the bottom to begin the process of stripping me of my invincibility, or to escape when wounded by Thorns.

Fingers scrabbled at the plates and latches without finding purchase, giving me time to think. Despite my strength, I didn’t have the leverage to do much with my arms. Throwing off a few of them would have been straightforward enough, but there were a few more on top of that few, and a few more on top of them, and so on.

What I could do was turn over my fist, clenching it as if I were still gripping a weapon. The buster sword was back in my inventory, and though I couldn’t look to see it, I could visualize in my mind where it was. There were only nine boxes total, and the last item stack I’d selected had been my torches. Assuming the sword had popped back into its usual spot, that meant I needed to move the selection over two spaces. It was the softest possible feeling, moving a finger that didn’t exist to highlight a box that I couldn’t see.

The summoning would probably fail. I couldn’t call a block of stone from my inventory to place it into an already existing wall, and a person would be pushed back if I converted a coin against them. But human bodies were a lot softer than a sword. Items could be recalled underwater, which would make room for whatever I was pulling out of my inventory. From the System’s perspective, was this any different?

I selected and called what I hoped was the buster sword, and a familiar hilt materialized in my hand. The blade was five feet long. The shouts and orders, grunts and cries of the soldiers pinning me down were quickly overwhelmed by some truly horrible screams. Some of them tried to get away. Some of them couldn’t, because they had been impaled. No one was piling on now.

I put the sword back in my inventory, adjusted the angle of my fist, and did it again. The weight began to lift, and no one was fighting me anymore. Dog piling a usurper was one thing, waiting in line to be skewered was quite another. The courage and loyalty of these men was already astounding, but there had to be limits. After dismissing the buster once more, I was barely able to roll onto my side, and from there push myself up out of the small mountain of gruesomely wounded men.

There were still plenty of soldiers who hadn’t been touched, especially around my legs, but they were panicking now, and as I stood up, there was only one very brave man who rose with me, still valiantly holding on to one of my arms.

“You’re going to want to let that go,” I said. His face was white as a sheet, his eyes wild, and it looked like he hadn’t understood what I’d said. I punched him with my other hand, breaking his nose and possibly a cheekbone, and he staggered away.

Surrounded by the dead and dying, drenched in their blood, I glanced down to see that the torch was still clipped into my belt. Summoning it had caused all this, but its glow was keeping the monsters back. Shamblers were mixed in with the soldiers, their mouths gaping open, hands and tentacles extending, but they didn’t have the will to press into the circle of enchanted light even with a demon demanding it of them.

Another column of super dense air crashed down around me, but I withstood it as the men at my feet cried out anew. Malphas couldn’t stop me, and neither could his army. I walked forward out of the pile, and the soldiers parted ahead of me. They still held weapons, spears, and swords, trembling in their hands, but when the buster sword reappeared, those nearest to me completely lost their nerve.

Those who had seen what happened broke and ran, and I took the opportunity to shove a loaf of bread into my mouth and chew, restoring some of the damage from the fall.

I could see that Major Garron was just beginning to clash with the leading battalion of Malphas’s force. Even if I was virtually invulnerable, one man couldn’t overcome an army of thousands. There were more soldiers, more monsters, so many more, and I was tired. What had happened to Noivern? I hoped my wyvern wasn’t dead, but I wouldn’t know until this was over.

Even as I walked, slashing at the occasional troll trying to brute force its way into the protective circle of my torch, there was another group of soldiers wheeling around to meet me. They were either too dumb or too loyal to have learned the lesson of their comrades. Crossbow bolts pelted me, bouncing off or shattering against my cuirass. A smaller group riding horses galloped by me, and one of them tossed a pot full of viscous liquid.

Almost in the same instant, torches were thrown, and it turned out the liquid had been oil. Flames sprang up around me, covering most of my right side. The suit had a Fire Resistance enchantment, not as strong as Kevin’s which had allowed him to swim through lava, but effective enough that the flames licking my armor just felt warm.

It had been a good idea, and whoever had come up with it deserved a medal. I was going to have to ask about that whenever they surrendered. But the result of the maneuver was that they had made me look even scarier.

Dargoth’s banners were flying ahead of me, my banners now, the red eye on a black field. Horns sounded again, this time from behind. A column of cavalry was riding in from the south, and I readied my sword to meet them before realizing what they were.

Hollow knights. The demons had told me about them, but I’d never actually met any. Skeletal figures in mismatched armor, waving old swords.

Blackened skulls and dried skin riding varghests. The beasts moved faster than horses, running down the disorganized groups of soldiers that were still milling around the siege weapons at the rear of the army. At the head of the column was Asmodeus, his hood open, and a blade flying from his hands.

The knife spun out in an arc, cutting down a fleeing man, before returning like a boomerang.

The hollow knights, hollows, were certainly ugly, their bones blackened, and ragged remnants of armor hanging off their withered frames, but they exhibited consummate skill as they engaged the monstrous rabble around me. Their swords swung in eerily perfect unison, scything through the press of panicked soldiers and moaning shamblers with ruthless efficiency.

Throughout it all, the hollows remained utterly silent, a stark contrast to the screams of their victims and the bloodthirsty barks of their mounts. Capitalizing on the chaos pandemonium resulting from the charge, Asmodeus raised his hands, fingers writhing in complex gestures.

With rasps and hisses spewing from his fanged maw, the demon called upon his elemental mastery. The crude swords and spears of the soldiers nearby shuddered violently, wrested from their owners' grasp by invisible forces. Then, guided by Asmodeus' shifting fingers, the weapons smoothly slid to a halt in mid-air before shooting forward in a deadly volley. Metal rang on metal as the impromptu projectiles slammed hauberk and chain, into the vulnerable bodies beneath.

The slaughter didn’t make me happy, but it was oddly satisfying to watch the enemy ranks fall en masse. The display of power was precisely the diversion I needed to finally get moving at a faster pace. Maybe the carnage had overwhelmed my sensibilities, and I was in shock, or maybe there was something deeper wrong with me, but the violence didn’t touch me in the way killing the first soldier had. I felt numb.

Asmodeus came to a halt, allowing me to catch up with him as the hollows continued to carve a swath into the army beyond us.

"Not exactly a rescue," I said, raising my voice over the din. “But it’ll do. Good to see you Kaa.”

Asmodeus dipped his hooded head in acknowledgment, serpents' eyes glinting with ancient intellect. "We serve the will of the Dark Lord," he rasped, forked tongue dancing. “Though I would prefer he did not refer to me as Kaa.”

“It’s affectionate,” I said, taking a moment to survey the field. Who didn’t love The Jungle Book? The hollows were formidable, but there were only around a hundred of them. If they stopped moving, they could be overwhelmed. The rest of Gaap’s army was nowhere to be seen. Asmodeus and this group had ridden ahead of the main force.

“I need a mount,” I said, “can I borrow yours?”

Asmodeus’s eyes were slitted. “You’re on fire, my Dark.”

“Oh, yeah,” I patted at the flames running up my right arm, spreading the oil further, and doing nothing to stop them. “It’s only a little fire, though,” I said.

“The varghests will not agree.”

The beast he was riding was licking blood off of its snout, looking like it was having the time of its life. I shrugged.

“Fair enough. Now that you’re here, we can finish off the remaining trebuchets. Call the hollow knights back to come with me, and see if you can do something about Malphas.”

Even as I said the name, a torrent of wind ripped through the field, taking some of the hollows off of their mounts, and disrupting the formation of the column as it shaved off a slice of the opposing army.

“With pleasure,” Asmodeus said. He sheathed both of his daggers and produced a small metallic sphere. It was cracked and pitted, a rusted iron ball, and I had no idea what he meant to do with it.

At an unseen signal, the sphere shot high into the air above us. It hung for a moment, a tiny, dull thing, and then erupted into a dazzling constellation. A hundred minuscule shards of metal careened through the sky, too fast and small for me to follow. Asmodeus glared up at Malphas, who had positioned himself over the hollows, sending gust after gust to interfere with their maneuvers. He was giving the soldiers, and his monsters, a chance to respond to the knights, boxing them in so that they could be overwhelmed.

Suddenly, he spasmed. The fragments of the sphere must have been too small for him to notice, and Asmodeus, whose hands were dancing again, had been able to force them through the swirls of air that protected the raven demon from normal projectiles. Malphas spun in the air, soaring higher, scanning for the source of his pain. When he spotted Asmodeus beside me, he paused in his ascent for a moment, then shot straight up into the clouds.

Two trebuchets remained, the men around them working with admirable diligence to keep up the assault. Now that I wasn’t otherwise occupied, I could hear the boulders as they crashed against the walls of my fortress. That was enough of that. I didn’t need to ride a wolf. As Asmodeus commanded the hollows to follow me, I took off at a sprint.

The buster sword could hack through wood well enough, but I had a more direct solution. Bowling over anyone who tried to get in my way, I switched it out for Agare’s hammer. The massive stone weapon was even more ungainly than the giant sword, but it came with a more satisfying crunch. Swinging it like a maniac, I had the nearest trebuchet collapsing onto its side in no time and was free to charge on to the final siege weapon.

The crew there had witnessed my assault on their sister machine, and they scattered as I thundered in. The hollows rode ahead, cutting them down. At another time, I might have ordered them to stop, to accept surrender, but I was too caught up in the battle.

Wood splintered, and the towering machine teetered like a felled tree, crashing down around me after I bashed through its supports. There was still an army to deal with, but as far as I was concerned, the siege was finished.

“You, Skelly Number One!” I shouted at the nearest hollow. “Come here.”

It obeyed, sheathing its weapon as it caused the varghest it was riding to trot over to meet me. The entity hesitated at the edge of the light of my torch, so I returned it to my inventory. The Hollow did not comment, regarding me with empty sockets, its mount breathing hard from the run.

“Give me your varghest,” I commanded, and the hollow nodded before dismounting. The fire on my armor had burned itself out, so I grabbed the wolf-like monster by the scruff of its neck and drew it close.

“I’m going to ride you,” I said, “you okay with that?”

It barked at me, which I took for agreement, releasing its scruff. It took my weight with a minor growl and responded to the pressure of my knees to turn it around. Dismissing the hammer, I shouted for the hollows to follow as we rode around the enemy to join with the garrison forces at the front.

The varghests moved with a predator’s grace, and the column formed a wall of black fur and old blades that mowed down anything in its path.

Major Garron appeared to be an able leader. Despite being outnumbered, he and the garrison were holding their own. It helped that his men were better equipped than Malphas’s, their stormtrooper armor gleaming under the occasional flash of lightning high above. They worked in concert, hacking away at the enemy with swords in front and halberds reaching through the ranks from behind. The garrison may have never engaged in a battle like this before, but they had trained religiously, and it showed.

Garron was giving orders from the middle of the formation, his standard flying, a black triangle on a red background representing the summit of Mount Doom. I spurred the varghest on, and the garrison greeted my arrival with a cheer, knowing me by my armor. I’d only given one inspection, but it had apparently been enough.

Shouts of “Dark Lord” and “For the Throne” filled the air as I arrived. Within moments, I stood before Garron himself. The gray-haired veteran saluted me with a fist to his chest.

“The siege weapons are done,” I said, “we should pull back.”

“As you wish,” Garron saluted again before shouting a few orders. Flags were raised across the formation, signaling an orderly withdrawal.

“We will defend you with our lives,” he said.

“No need,” I replied, “I’m going to give you guys some breathing room.”

“My Lord?” His eyes held the question. He wouldn’t contradict me, but he saw it as his duty, and that of his men, to act as my defenders, not the other way around.

I clasped his shoulder. “Keep the men alive. Get them back within the walls.”

He saluted once more, and I turned to the waiting hollows.

“To the front,” I said, swinging back up on the varghest. Skelly Number One, I was pretty sure it was him, nodded, and the column rode with me to meet the main line of Malphas’s army. Our forces moved aside so we could pass, taking a new formation better suited to a withdrawal.

They continued to fight, but they were already backing toward Mount Doom.

Spears lowered to meet our charge, and then the air was filled with a host of unearthly cries. A flock of phantoms descended ahead of us, hundreds of them, as well as a flight of wyverns. With a glance behind, I caught a glimpse of Orobas standing at the rampart above the gate, directing the mobs.

The enemy’s front line fell into disarray, and I, along with the hollows, barreled into them. The buster sword was in my hand again, swinging in wide arcs. The extra height afforded by my mount was perfect for lopping off heads. The blade cleaved through armor and bone with equal ease, decapitating soldiers left and right. The varghest proved hard to control as it lunged and snapped with fanged jaws, ripping out a soldier's throat as he came in under my sword to try to pull me out of the saddle. All around me the hollow knights fought in perfect synchronicity, their pitted blades rising and falling in an inexorable rhythm.

Overhead, the phantoms and wyverns harried the enemy ranks. Their shrieks and roars lent an extra dimension to the madness of the battle. Spears and arrows darted up to try and bring them down, but it was a haphazard resistance. They swooped in again and again, further disrupting the ranks.

Malphas was nowhere to be seen, and in his absence, his officers continued to direct the attack. I pulled the varghest up short and exchanged the buster for my bow. Nargul had its own flag, a crown over a diamond, and I started targeting anyone who stood near them with flaming arrows.

The soldiers of Dargoth were accustomed to fighting alongside monsters, not against them. With the force becoming increasingly disorganized, it wasn’t long before they were in a rout.

Asmodeus rode through the chaos on his varghest to sit beside me, the hollows forming up once more around us, ready for another charge. With Malphas gone, the mobs that had been under the demon’s control were beginning to break ranks, attacking any human nearby, which happened to be the enemy.

“Shall we pursue?” Asmodeus asked me, his voice a quiet sibilance amid the din.

“No,” I said, “bring the hollows into Mount Doom, following the garrison.” My goal here was not to kill every enemy soldier. They were my soldiers, really, they just didn’t know it yet. Gaap would arrive within hours, bringing the main force with him. At that point, we would be in an ideal position to negotiate a surrender.