Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 57 Our Second Miracle

“They are building up too fast!” Sergeant Thomson called out over the cacophony of clattering bones and rending steel.

“Brent and Fina you’re up!” Edward ordered and the pair immediately cast a pair of Walls of Flame at the base of the city wall.

“I-I can’t keep this up!” Brent panted.

“Just fifty more seconds until Bartholomew can take your place.” Edward tried to encourage the boy but it was no use.

Brent stumbled as the last of his mana was pulled from his system by the ongoing spell. “Shi-” Fina’s curse was drowned out by a sudden explosion that rocked the area Brent was supposed to be maintaining.

Edward and Fina both whipped their heads to the side in shock as they heard manic laughter coming from twenty feet away. It was the artificer from Eliot’s party cackling with undisguised glee at the blast of her explosives. The small elvish woman was a liability most days but today she was proving her worth.

“They’re already filling in the gap!” Sergeant Thomson yelled. “Guild Master! What now?!”

“You take a deep breath.” A calm voice carried across their section of the wall. “Halya will aid us.”

Edward was temporarily too dumbfounded to speak as he saw the elderly cleric of humanity’s patron goddess. She was the last person he expected to see on the battlefield. “Pope Chrysa-” He began but was cut off by a raised hand from the woman.

“Eddy, I need some space and someone to make sure I do not get speared.” She told him. Seemingly to punctuate her order, another spear flew over their heads. The skeletons had started throwing their weapons at them, before they piled up, as soon as the first Wall of Flames had been cast.

“I’ll do it.” Edward told her. “Fina! Drag Brent out of the way. The pope needs some space.”

“Yes, Guild Master.” Fina replied and immediately did as she was told.

Chrys stood with her staff held casually in one hand and raised her other to the sky. Edward immediately interposed himself between the skeletons and the miracle they needed. He cut a spear out of midair that was roughly aimed at their general direction.

“And lo, Halya said unto them: ‘Burn the harvested fields to feed the next generation. Let nothing go to waste. Use the dead and the discarded to nourish the future so that you, my children, may flourish until the end of days.’” Chys recited a verse from the time when Halya was able to walk among them. Each of her goddess’s words resonated with the world itself as she quoted them. A dull golden glow seemed to seep into reality as she continued to quote the great goddess of fertility, growth, and harvest. Small, ethereal, golden, wheat shoots started to sprout among the skeletal army. Over the course of a dozen seconds they appeared to move through their entire life cycle. The seeds fell and faded away before, all of a sudden, every illusory plant caught fire simultaneously. The fire itself was golden and radiated a divine brilliance that eclipsed the substantial heat it produced.

Fina let her spell fade so she could save on mana. She had never seen such a miracle before but she was not surprised that a maximum level cleric was capable of such a feat. Alexander appeared a moment later at the top of the stairs leading up to them. He was panting hard as he had clearly been running. The court mage had long since ran out of mana so flight hadn’t been an option. He pulled a silver stone out of his bottomless bag as he staggered over to her. The lightshow caught his attention, before they could converse, and they both turned to watch four square miles of terrain burn with the divine brilliance of a merciful guide. The burning field hung in place for almost thirty seconds before it started to fade.

Edward caught Chrys as she staggered. “Are you alright?” He questioned the elderly woman.

“My soul hurts but I’ll live.” She told him. “My mana is yet full, child. Take me to the rest of the clerics.”

“I’ll take her.” Sergeant Thomson interjected and looped Chrys’s arm around his shoulder. The rest of the noncombat clerics had been stationed at regular intervals along the wall to do the only two things that they were able to; heal the wounded and bless their armaments.

Edward nodded to the sergeant. “Pope Chrysanthemum, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your assistance.” He told the elderly woman. “Please don’t push yourself too hard.”

“Oh bah,” She waved him off with the top of her staff. “Just make sure it was worth it.” She told him and then let Sergeant Thomson help her along the wall.

“Fina, take this.” Alexander said and stuffed the silver stone into her hand. “Actually, have another. You are the best mage we have readily available.” He added and gave her another one.

“What is… are these mana stones?” She questioned even though she knew exactly what they were. “Alexander, I can’t use these if they’ve been filled with your mana. It might kill me.”

Alexander gave her a weary smirk. “Just who do you take me for? I have an apparatus in my tower that refills them with natural mana.” He explained and then stuffed one into the unconscious Brent’s hand and gave Bartholomew one of his own.

“What about the rest of the mages?” Bartholomew questioned.

“Aside from Celeste and Fable there aren’t any other mages in the city that can cast Wall of Flames. At this point no other spells are efficient enough to warrant using my limited supply of these.” Alexander explained. “We are all that stands between the undead and the entire garrison going hand to hand with an endless army of the dead.”

Bartholomew nodded in understanding. He had been watching every single guard and soldier in Safeharbor rain blessed bolts and arrows down on the undead. If only Jallen V’Nova hadn’t attacked so recently then they would have had explosive ballista bolts to add to the mix. Bartholomew closed his eyes and focused on pulling the mana out of the stone in his hand. All other stray thoughts could wait until they were out of the apocalyptic event they were currently weathering.

“Have you seen Fable?” Alexander asked Edward.

Edward nodded and gestured towards the tunnel that the undead were still pouring out of. “Over there, last I saw him.” He explained. “They are too far away and it is too dark out there to tell if he is still alive.”

“It’s Fable.” Fina cut in. “If anyone can survive wading through that mess it is him.”

“Even Fable has his limits. We have seen them.” Edward reminded her.

“Give me five minutes and I’ll go look for him.” Alexander said and slumped down against the wall. “Pope Chrys bought us some time. Use it well.”

Edward nodded and looked out over the charred and empty land that the pope’s miracle had created. Not even the armor or weapons of the undead remained, only a thin layer of ash. Her miracle may have taken a lot out of her but she had utterly annihilated more undead in half a minute than Fina or Bartholomew could in an hour, even with the undead voluntarily running headlong into their flames. “That was our second miracle today. As much as I would like to say that good things come in threes, I wouldn’t bet on it.” Edward told Alexander. “Rest up while you can.” He added to the rest of the mages.

An hour and a half after Chrys’s miracle, the mages had officially run completely dry. Bartholomew was in critical condition after he drank his seventeenth mana potion. By all accounts he was incredibly lucky. Usually a mana reversal would have happened within the first ten. Fina refused to drink her only mana potion. That was saved for when she needed to save her own life and no one else's. She had a label on it that said: ‘Liferaft only’. It would only be drunk in the event that she didn’t have enough mana left to teleport herself away and only then.

Fina had drawn her sword and stood alongside the rest of her team one hundred feet to the left of the gate. The skeletons had formed three mounds and that one was theirs. They had a dozen guards behind them but otherwise they were left to fend for themselves. Along the right flank Elliot and his team along with Bartholomew’s team members and most of the other adventurers in the city prepared for contact with the endless horde. In the middle there were fifty guardsmen supporting Edward, Duke Izen, Sir Michael, and Captain Tim. The rest of the guards were ushering people deeper into the city just in case any skeletons somehow got past them all.

Alexander had left to find Fable and had brought back a bloodied, but somehow still breathing, living legend. Fable was barely recognizable when Alexander had dumped him in front of Pope Chrys. Unfortunately Alexander was once again out of mana before he could make much of a difference to the massive mound of bones and steel that had piled up against their walls.

Soon enough the first skeletons climbed over the wall. It was a trickle at first. One or two at a time that were quickly crushed or tossed back over the side. Then it became a handful at once, four to six, until finally they were coming over the wall by the dozen. They seemed to reach an equilibrium of ten to twenty skeletons per second at each of the three mounds. It was a lot for fresh warriors to deal with but soon exhaustion settled in. One by one guards or adventurers would take an injury that necessitated their retreat to the healers.

Edward could feel his vision closing in as exhaustion settled so deeply into his bones he doubted it would ever leave. Izen, Tim, and Michael were rotating with the guardsmen in five minute shifts to keep their energy levels as stable as possible. The only person capable of switching out with Edward was Fable and the old man was unconscious and would continue to be for only the gods knew how long. He swung and somehow managed to miss a skeleton. It was at that moment that he realized he had pushed himself too far. In a blink the skeleton that he had missed was falling to the ground in three distinct pieces and a tired grin crept across the Blade Master’s face.