Wine has never tasted sweeter than while I was drinking it from the skull cup I created. My latest Calamity kill had a head the right size to hold a good amount of liquid without turning comical, and I took advantage.
The various noble Lords and Ladies of the Great Houses found this less amusing, and apparently I 'ruined the Imperial Graduation of Her Majesty the Crown Princess'.
I then mildly suggested that perhaps I should have let it pass through and join us here, at which point I was gifted a rather nice warhorse for my 'contributions to the Imperial Containment of The Dungeon'.
Remember, Archmage. There is no power quite like personal power.
Excerpt from The Beasts of the Dungeon.
REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK p^o^q REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK
Marcus exhaled and tried to ignore the burning on his scalp, slowly putting Elly's hand back together. Her own body was doing a… remarkably good job of that itself, but even so it would have taken hours.
She'd broken through her limits, then. Broken through her limits and slaughtered an actual chicken, which would have looked ridiculous if Elly hadn't been wearing half molten armor. That alone tempted him to raise it as an undead and butcher it again.
But it was her kill, which was only one of the reasons that wouldn't work. If he did raise it as an undead it would be nothing but an ordinary chicken, because life couldn't ever be easy. It was the same reason the Empire didn't have several million undead mages in its ranks.
Animating bone, muscle and flesh was one thing, the rest was the stuff of Archmages. And there had only ever been one necromantic Archmage, as far as he knew, who had promptly fled the continent.
Also, Elly would probably glare at him if he sullied her kill with necromancy.
Speaking off, she was taking a trophy. Her knife flashed and she was holding its beak, which was about as long as her hand even while broken. Marcus cleared his throat. "Not to interrupt the festivities, but we're about to be surrounded."
"I know, I know," she replied, tucking her prize away. "I take it you can't just teleport us back to the Eastfort?"
Marcus shook his head. "I'll need at least a few hours to recover, and what little reserves I do have I'd rather keep in… reserve. Pun not intended. So, you got even stronger, huh?"
"Says the sixth-tier mage," Elly shot back, glancing at the approaching Hounds. "Is it just me, or does it feel like there's more and more Hounds every day?"
He shrugged. "We killed three Calamities. A hundred years ago, that would have been it. The worst is over. Two hundred years before that even one would be considered an extinction level event. Before even that? One only came every few Dungeon Breaks, which themselves happen far less frequently than now."
"So you're saying we're just now entering the peak?"
"That's what I'm saying."
Elly hummed. "Its a miracle your continent is still standing, honestly. And I guess it's a good thing that we're already leaving the Eastfort. Now, more pressingly, how do we get back there without killing ourselves?"
Marcus carved a summoning seal into the air, draining what little power he'd recovered. Xathar walked out of it, looking no worse for wear, and immediately sniffed at his pocket. Marcus pulled out the hand he'd taken from Circe's corpse, which Xathar immediately chomped down on.
"You spoil him," Elly muttered. "So we're riding? Better than my idea, I guess."
"Do I even dare ask?"
"I was going to carry you and horrifically injure myself by drawing on Life energy."
He snorted. "I'd like to keep what masculinity I have left, thank you very much. Now let's go. We have another ten seconds before we're swarmed."
Elly almost beat him to riding in the saddle, but his bribery had paid off. Xathar stepped closer to him instead, making her grumble and get behind him, and his mount screamed for seemingly no reason before taking off.
What followed was not what he'd had in mind. Because Xathar was fast, yes, and could climb slopes no regular horse could, but with both Calamities dead there wasn't anything stopping the Hounds from swarming towards them. Which they did.
By the tens of thousands.
Elly had insisted they retrieve her bow, which had cost precious seconds, but it was also the only thing that stopped them from being cut-off. Her quiver held hundreds of arrows, and even without Life energy, she was an extraordinarily good shot.
The best Marcus could offer was a pathetically weak spatial arc, and only every half an hour or so. Which did help to clear out clumps of opposition, but frankly, he wasn't of too much use.
They did make it back, in the end. Xathar was tireless, and unlike the Hounds, intelligent. In fact, the demon seemed to relish in the challenge. Not too much to do while serving a spatial mage, he supposed.
It was very hard to beat instantaneous teleportation.
Marcus just about fell out of the saddle when the gate of the Eastfort closed behind them, watching Elly dismount like she'd gone for a pleasant evening ride. He grunted and drank half the waterskin one of the Royal Guards handed him, only realizing how stupid that was some seconds later.
He didn't have enough power to cure any poisons, and without Margaret nearby to heal him—
Enough. There was no poison, and his guards had extensive protocols to avoid infiltration. And even if by some fluke he did end up getting poisoned again, he had other healers.
Marcus straightened, finally noticing how empty the fort was. A few thousand soldiers still manned the walls, but the main area was almost deserted. Elly walked up next to him, humming lightly. "I'm going to need you to heal me."
"Pardon?"
Elly grumbled something, speaking up louder a moment later. "I have third degree burns on my back. It hurts, and my own healing won't be able to take care of it for days. And also I don't feel like some random person staring at my bare back for however long it takes them to fix it."
"Sure," he agreed, shrugging. No real reason not to. "The evacuation seems to be going according to plan, so we have time. Whole hours, at least. We also need to talk about the Calamities."
"Why?"
"Because I got lucky." Marcus sighed at her raised eyebrow. "My specialty countered hers, and she was a poor fighter. If we'd decided to switch, I don't like your odds."
Elly tsked. "The chicken creature moved so fast I could only barely keep up, at least at first. We need to consolidate our strategies and powersets. No offense, but you're kind of all over the place."
"And you rely on speed over defense, which means any mistake is punished hard." He snorted at her mock glare. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were being honest. Please continue the criticism while ignoring your own flaws. I'm sure that will end well for everyone involved."
She shook her head, a grin threatening her solemn expression. "You need a new haircut."
"You smell."
"I should hope so. People without scent are highly suspicious."
"You smell like blood, then."
Elly turned to him, face drawn in surprise. "No?! And here I thought the small river of the stuff I poured over my feet and legs would make me smell like daisies. Also, you smell like burnt hair."
"You already used my hair against me. Weak."
She drew herself up, deflating with a wince. "Healing first, then I'll mock you more. And we need to get an accurate count of our supplies. We brought a lot, but fighting this intense burns through ammunition and replacement weapons like a bonfire. Oh, and—"
Marcus listened to her talk, humming at the appropriate times, and tried to ignore the bone-deep exhaustion in his soul.
He was going to need a nap, and soon.
REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK p^o^q REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK
A week. For a week they'd been running, and they were slowly getting hunted down. He'd had barely any time to think, barely any time to sleep, and just because he had six matrices now didn't mean he could just portal the army back to Mirrania.
He'd tried.
The Royal Army moved quickly, but the Hounds moved quicker. Every few hours another portion of their soldiers had to dig in and defend, buying their brothers and sisters time to move ahead, and the only silver lining so far had been a lack of Calamities.
Elly was a terror, her speed and strength letting her scythe through their enemies like death itself, and Marcus had been weaving so many spatial arcs he could almost feel himself growing numb.
And even between the two of them, it wasn't enough. The mages were being run ragged building temporary fortifications, flying Hounds harassed marching soldiers, and making camp at the end of the day took twice as long as usual. They managed perhaps some fifteen klicks a day, which Elly apparently found impressive.
As she'd explained, camp followers—which they didn't have—the rough terrain and the constant harassment would have stopped most armies dead.
Yet more Hounds came. More Champions schemed, and if there had been Burrowers too this might have already been over. But at least being on the move stopped the worms from tunneling under them, which was something.
Marcus teleported up, using the long moment before gravity reasserted itself to take a look at the army. He'd been scared to do this, once. Mentally tallied up all the dangers it brought and promptly never attempted it.
His fight with Circe had shaken some things loose, and the stress of the last week had killed the remaining hesitation.
At least it was a clear day. That trick didn't work so well in the rain.
He spotted the current problem—and there was always a problem—quickly. A few tribes of Champions had managed to push into the convoys, probably exploiting a gap in their perimeter. Marcus teleported towards them, arriving just before the company of resting mages shifted into battle.
The soldiers guarding the mages looked dead on their feet, but his arrival seemed to have rallied them. Not that Marcus noticed. He appeared facing the enemy, and sliced at them with two spatial arcs in quick succession. The first killed two dozen, carving through Orcs and Elves and Dwarves with ease, while the second sliced into those smart enough to drop to the ground.
Some still lived, but the momentum they'd had was gone. Marcus half turned to the closest officer, a lieutenant by his insignia. "Kill the rest, scavenge what metal you can. No sense in letting them get it back."
The man saluted, barking at his men to move. Marcus teleported back up into the sky as they got to work, swords and axes falling on the remaining Champions.
He oriented himself and teleported back down next to Elly, only just having started falling. Someone had suggested they'd attach a sail to his arms, let him glide to his destination. Marcus would stick with teleporting.
Elly turned to him, dismissing the trio of captains she'd been talking to. "They're bleeding us dry. A week, at most, and we'll be forced to dig in. Without something like the Eastfort, which we can't build, we're dead. Attrition is already up by thirty percent compared to when we set out."
"How many?" Marcus asked, grimacing. Elly hesitated, making him sigh. "Just tell me."
"Over two hundred wounded per day, though roughly eighty percent of those survive. Another fifty dead. Two companies worth, in short. It's worsening morale, though the life-or-death aspect to the fight means we won't see any desertion."
Marcus grunted. "Yeah. Nowhere to desert to, I'd imagine. What are we down to?"
"Seventeen thousand." Elly replied grimly. "And that's including the wounded. Some will need to return to Mirrania, which leaves us standing at just over sixteen thousand. The only good news is that the frequent fighting is rapidly hardening any new officers, and with our competence-based promotion, we're not lacking leadership."
"Still sticking to captain and below?"
"Yeah. Tactics can be learned from experience and augmented by instinct, but strategy has to be learned. It's why I assigned each commander a separate bodyguard unit. Life Enhancement soldiers, mages, the works. I even reassigned some of the Royal Guard."
"I know." Marcus snorted. "Captain Yonas came to ask me for permission."
"He's a good soldier, and his relationship to Duke Helios ensures his loyalty."
Marcus shrugged, looking out over the army. The captain was very low on his list of priorities, at the moment.
The current major obstacle was the mountain they had to pass, though it wasn't a big one. But a small mountain was still a mountain, and it forced the army to go thin and long. That wasn't ideal when they were being harassed every second of every day.
Well, that was pessimistic. Summons and crossbowmen kept the skies relatively clear, and the Hounds were still as stupid as usual. Marcus went to reply, and didn't even get to form a syllable before the earth shook.
Elly was already peering into the distance, speaking a few moments later. "Earth worm. Roughly one hundred feet in length. It's causing minor earthquakes and rapidly approaching our location."
"Horned Earth Serpent," Marcus said. Elly nodded in agreement. "Fuck. The Hounds?"
"Running alongside it. We have to fight it, and while we're doing so, the army has to endure without us."
Double fuck.
Marcus grunted, checking his reserves. Holding at sixty percent. It would have to do. "I'd almost prefer a Calamity, at least the Hounds seem to be scared of those, but we know its weaknesses. Its skull is relatively thin, so I teleport you up to it, you carve its brain out. Be careful about the rocks, those things like to make clouds of them for defense."
Elly hummed, which was nice of her. She knew all of that as well as he did, so telling her was redundant. Still, better to be sure, and it soothed his own stress levels.
Marcus teleported them both up, enjoying Elly's slightly startled look, then down again. The Horned Earth Serpent was much, much closer now, and Hounds howled in rage at their appearance.
Elly promptly put an arrow through the worm's skull, which entered and exited in a split-second. The Horned Earth Serpent didn't seem overly concerned with the gaping head wound, and apparently Elly had missed the brain. Or at least the important parts of it.
She clicked her tongue. "Why can't anything ever be easy?"
"We're supposed to be stressed, remember?" Marcus replied, moving them a thousand feet to the right. The serpent worm creature smashed into their last position, an explosion of earth and stone leveling the area. "See? That could have killed us."
She shrugged, giving him a hungry smile. "I don't know about stressed, but I'm certainly feeling something. It's good to hunt again."
"This is workplace harassment." Marcus weaved a spatial arc, which opened the rapidly approaching worm from belly to… belly? Lots of blood, was the point. "I'll report you."
Elly snorted, putting her bow away and drawing her verdant sword. "Take it up with the King."
She vanished in a burst of speed, and Marcus glanced back towards the army. His budding good mood vanished when an entire flock of flying Hounds raced past them, already gone by the time he could thin their numbers.
His army pulled together, mages and crossbowmen taking aim, but there would be casualties. And unlike usual, neither of them would be there to help.
Marcus teleported himself up again, appearing right next to the worm and opening another hundred-feet long wound. It trashed and threw rocks at him, and he was forced to teleport further up to avoid them.
It really was a shame he couldn't fly with this. It should be as simple as teleporting up then towards any direction he wished, not giving gravity enough time to drag him down. And if it did, he could simply teleport up again.
But no. Just like wind mages couldn't use air to fly, he couldn't fly with teleportation. Going up was one thing, but from there he had no reference point. Nothing to anchor the teleport to. Which made no sense, and it should work, but his attempts had been unsuccessful.
And highly dangerous.
Yet more Hounds streamed past their fight, and Marcus grunted. Six matrices combined into a spatial arc, which sliced the Horned Earth Serpent in half, but the two sides seemed perfectly able to live without one another. Elly was climbing towards its head now, dodging an increasing amount of flying boulders, but the problem wasn't killing it.
They'd each taken a Calamity and come out victorious. Together, against a not-quite Calamity? No, the problem wasn't winning. It was winning without being injured, without sacrificing too much power, and without taking so long that the army would get overrun.
And the Horned Earth Serpent seemed very determined to be as slow to die as possible. Marcus wasted another fifteen percent reserves by teleporting all its boulders away, giving Elly a clean path towards its head, but seconds later more had been collected.
Then the Hounds finally joined in properly, and he had to spend more time moving than attacking. Even Elly, climbing up onto its face as she was, wasn't left alone. Bird and bat creatures harassed her by the dozens, and the Horned Earth Serpent seemed perfectly fine with them flying so close to its face.
Marcus glanced back at the army again. More and more companies were being deployed to hold back the flood of Hounds, which meant fewer and fewer were actually crossing the mountain. And if the whole army was forced to fight, disengaging again would be a nightmare.
And he couldn't see a way out. Even if the worm dropped dead this instant, their main problems didn't die with it. More and more and more Hounds would come, infinities stacked on top of infinities, and if they got slowed down enough, Champions would arrive. Which meant more fighting, slower progress, more death, and—
Marcus snapped to the east, a pulse of very familiar power blazing in his senses. Familiar, destructive, and wholly welcome power. He teleported up, down and up again, crossing tens of thousands of feet in a dozen, and scooped up the arriving form of Vistus like an errant child.
It took only six more seconds to get the man close to the Horned Earth Serpent, and Marcus all but threw him at the thing. Vistus seemed to take that in stride, an idle wave of his hand vanishing its skull.
The thick part of its skull, at that, which Elly pivoted to attack. She'd been working her way to the thinner sections, but her sword flashed all the same.
The Horned Earth Serpent died, and Marcus teleported both them and himself back to the army. On closer inspection Vistus didn't seem particularly comfortable this high up in the air, but neither did the Archmage complain.
Almost four thousand of his soldiers were fighting now, and he could already see three main clusters of combat. Conveniently, there were three of them.
He had this suspicious feeling that his problems were about to be removed from existence.
Which was good, very good, but Vistus' presence did beg a larger question.
How utterly fucked was the Empire, and its Legions, that the Empress was sending the man to rescue them?
To rescue him?
Afterword
Book two, minus the epilogue, has been finished on the patreon.