In the middle of the battlefield.
Danh's POV
NOPE! I'm outta here. As I turn my horse around and begin riding away as fast as I possibly can, I shout: "We will continue later!"
From the corner of my eyes, I can see Rajirson riding away even faster than me, shouting back: "I agree!"
My guards patiently wait for me to ride to the middle of the group before riding with me. One of the human guards asks: "What now, your greatness?"
"We have peace with the tribals. Focus on eliminating the zombies."
He nods and relays my order once we get back to our left flank. As the diplomatic group disperses and each member goes back to their former positions, I decide to leave the front, seeing that I am no longer needed here. Riding back with the 3 companies that I have brought along, I turn my head to check the rest of both armies.
The original boar was dealt with swiftly. The moment both me and the warchief fled, everyone on the field could guess that it was a threat and turn it into a big porcupine made out of arrow shafts. The chaotic charge of the horde is greatly slowed down due to their sheer disorganization. Some animals trip over others' feet, some trample each other and some do both and then trip over their own foot. Looking at this mess, I'm rather sure that the zombies won't be much of an issue for the disciplined, uh, sufficiently disciplined soldiers on both sides to annihilate them.
And then, to my surprise, and my guards when I almost crash into one of them, the first boar stands back up and continues its charge. The only change that I can see is its right front leg being slightly stuck due to an arrow lodging in that joint. Other than that, the headless boar is still charging. When it reaches the tribal shieldwall, which has just changed direction to meet the charge, limbs fly through the sky as it is hacked to pieces by axes. Even then, its body and limbs still twitch in a way similar to that of a charge.
How on Wanarion does?! Okay, let's guess from what I've known. To keep on moving even without the brain, the virus is somehow coordinating with each other using whatever memories, instincts and reflexes they can find in the body. This is especially true considering the individual parts are still moving even when separated. The movements use up energy that isn't replenished like in the skeletons, so the bodies are moving on adrenaline. Therefore, the zombies will inevitably perish from the damage caused by overexertion. I just need to keep the virus from spreading and hold on for long enough.
Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be a problem as the messengers on both sides have reached the other units. Now, both armies' attention is on the zombified animals. Rains of arrows descend on the horde, dealing…Well I'm not sure of the damage, seeing that the horde is still charging like a black wave. Huh, so this is what the tribals saw when the skeletons attacked them. Very useful for moral shock.
The catapults fare better with dozens of zombies crushed under a hail of rocks. Though even that couldn't end the tide of zombies as it charges towards both armies. The right flank of Rajirson's army, having turned around completely, greets the charge with a variety of throwing projectiles. From throwing axes to javelins to torches and stones, everything is thrown at the zombies. The only reason my skeletons didn't have to face this attack was because the commanders, zealous as they are, were still smart enough to keep distance and loose arrows.
The zombies have no commander to control the horde. Half of the horde crashes onto the shieldwall. The shieldwall holds, though pushed back slightly. With that, Rajirson's forces can easily dismantle the zombies, especially with the rest of his army coming to aid him. For the other half, my left flank is successfully luring them away from the tribal army, allowing the tribals to focus only on their front. Using cycle charging, the zombies are felled with ease. The skeletons, having no biological parts left from being scrubbed clean during their creation, have nothing for the virus to infect. Though there are still losses as the impacts shatter bones and break skulls.
Thankfully, the horde itself is small. Their number only consists of my hunters' quarry and local wildlife, which is very few. With the disciplined response, the zombie horde will be decimated soon. So I just need to ride back to the rear and wait for this to finish. Turning back at the rest of both armies, I see that nearly everyone is moving to the front, leaving a widening gap between the forest and my right flank and the tribals' left. Since I have a larger cavalry force, maybe I can send units through there to take out the catapults and outflank the tribals.
…Should I? That would harm the peace, which hasn't been recorded or detailed anyway. However, if I can't eliminate everyone, the news would spread. But, I can with the reinforcements that are probably coming here from Olta and the hunters. In terms of my own view, it would go against my morals. In terms of future prospects, I would need to make allies in order to rival the overwhelming might of the Goddess and her followers. To start with a betrayal against a simple peace deal would be unwise for achieving such goals.
Then, I reach my general and the reserves in the rear. He speaks, a smile on his face and oddly quick as if he has been wanting to speak for a while:
"Look, there is a gap between the barbarians and the forest on their left flank. We can charge through there and crush them!"
He looks at me expectantly. Considering everything, "Do not, we have peace with them already. The issues have been settled. Let's not make more."
His smile disappears as he argues: "But this is such a great chance to end them once and for all. You won't have to worry about them ever again!"
"It might be true or maybe more of their kin will come, searching for the killers. Plus, I do not want to fall so low as to betray them."
He glances regretfully at the gap. Then his face hardens as he nods, "As you ordered, your greatness."
He continues to coordinate the fight against the zombies, ignoring the opportunity.
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West of Rajirson's camp.
Third person POV.
The greater shaman watches as the scavenger birds fly away. They were here to feast on the corpses of fallen soldiers on the losing side, which are usually left unburied for a few days. Now that the zombies have appeared, there's no point in lingering around anymore for the risk of infection is not worth a meal.
Of course, as for the greater shaman, she knows nothing of the zombies, nor the battle for that matter after sneaking away a few days ago. However, she can infer what is possibly happening. Rajirson's army might have met the cultists' army and just won the battle. With the skeletons left on the battlefield, the birds see no food to eat and leave.
However, whether there is a battle at all isn't something she cares about. What is on her mind is the guy with such an insane amount of mana that it almost blinded her just trying to figure the scope of it. Then why was she watching the sky? She had previously sent a message to the Trygg clan's leader, calling upon an eagle to deliver it. Then she repeated it a dozen times because the first few ones kept running off to hunt.
Unreliable, the spell to ask eagles for help may be, she doesn't have anything better. She has heard of systems that can communicate over thousands of miles located somewhere in the center of the continent, but she wasn't born there and her roots are too deep here to move.
Then she hears great screeches. Looking at the source, she sees 2 great flocks, one heading to her, the other to the supposed battlefield. From the flock flying toward her, 5 tiny birds speed up ahead of the V formation. As they quickly get close, she can identify them accurately. They are 5 of the eagles that she sent to deliver her message.
As she pulls out a few pieces of dried meat to feed them, 2 of them get distracted, dive straight for a snow fox and begin fighting against each other for the quarry. The other three land in front of her, the smallest one is at least half her height.
As she feeds them, she thinks to herself, 'Almost half of the eagles actually got to where they needed to, about a quarter actually returned to confirm that the message was sent. The message is probably leaked due to all the eagles that flew to who-know-where. I can only hope that the Jarls see the importance of this message that she is not punished for this carelessness.'
Then the rest of the birds, the size of each is so great that even eagles seem like tiny sparrows by comparison, begin to make their landing. As they approach, their shadows darken the land around her. The blue phantoms appear at the tip of their wings, stretching outward and seemingly lengthen the span. The greater shaman still remembers learning of this from her master so many years ago. The birds themselves can't control and use magic like the intelligent species, but they can instinctively use it to aid their daily activities. Otherwise, they can't even fly with their biology.
As the snow is starting to be kicked up by the birds, the greater shaman calmly grips her staff tightly, pushing some of her mana into it. With careful thoughts and control, she channels the mana to activate a specific magic circle engraved within the staff, a simple barrier. Blue glimmer surrounds her as the snow and wind crash onto the translucent magic barrier protecting her. From behind the barrier, she can vaguely make out the great birds landing a fair distance away, enough to not ruffle her clothes much even without the barrier. However, she still needs to maintain the dignity of her post and status, so she summons the barrier to be able to stand straight with proper clothing and stoicism.
The gigantic birds land surprisingly softly, the magical parts of the wings disappearing. Standing on their talons, they are almost the height of 3 men. Their wings, the non-magical parts, are at least thrice their height. Called egalus, they make for excellent flying mounts due to their size, carrying capacity, speed and most importantly, enough intelligence to follow orders yet still charge into a hail of arrows when commanded to. In exchange, they consume an equally great amount of food. Hence, the first dismounted egalus handler has to open the food container for the egaluses to eat. The 3 dozen egaluses eagerly walk to their daily meal, a pile of dried meat that could probably feed a family…for a year.
Including the handler, 3 dozen men walk out from the wooden boxes loosely tied to the legs of the egaluses. Twelve are armoured in gambeson, 18 clad in chain mail and six in full plate. The shaman quickly figures out that the men in gambeson are the handlers of these egaluses and the rest are the ones being escorted here.
One of the men clad in mail raises a banner high. She quickly bows as the banner reveals that the group is of the Harald clan. After her bow, the banner is quickly lowered down. A man in full plate steps forward, he speaks to her: "Don't worry about the leaked messages. They either ended up in the hands of unimportant people, or people who are smart enough to play dumb. I will need to ask some questions. If anyone asks, just say that I ask you about Rajirson."
She nods at the man, whose visor hasn't been lowered, leaving her unaware of his face. Even then, she can still feel his stare into her eyes, almost as if he is reading her soul. Whether he's scaring her or genuinely reading her thoughts somehow, he is satisfied with what he sees and begins interrogating her.
He asks many questions about the powerful mage. Mostly focusing on the exact details of the mage's looks and clothing. As she answers truthfully, she also starts to realize the unusual traits that the mage has. Especially when the man asks about the mage's actual spells, she realizes that the mage didn't cast anything back then. As she is pondering about this, the man stares into her eyes again. Realizing that she is starting to think beyond her pay grade, she smiles lightly. The man ends the conversation:
"Go back to Rajirson's army. He will understand and accept you back in without questions."
With that, the group enters into the wooden boxes and begins to ascend, controlling the egaluses with ropes attached to harness around the egaluses. The greater shaman heeds the man's instructions and starts making her way to Rajirson's camp.
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The battlefield
Third person POV.
Egaluses suddenly approached from the west, flying over the battlefield. They unleashed several volleys of javelins, dropped from the egaluses by diving straight down and releasing the payload at their fastest moment before pulling back up. The javelins tore through the zombies, impaling many to the ground or each other. They remained even though their javelins seemed expended, flying around the battlefield in circles.
On Danh's side of the battlefield, Danh turns to his general: "General, can any of our bows hit them?"
The general shakes his head: "Maybe only during those diving javelin launches. Their current height is beyond the range of our bows. However, I lack knowledge in this area as this is the first time I have seen these creatures as well."
"What about our mages? Can they reach them?"
"No, your greatness. Our mages have less range than the bows. Only the more powerful ones that stay back in Olta can take down those birds."
"Huh, I thought that the mages were saving mana for whatever reason."
"Our mages can only create barriers to protect themselves and cast close range spells. Even then, most of what they know are only for more utility purposes than combat. In fact, they are not much better than the rest in combat so I didn't mention them while we were preparing for the battle."
"Wait, how many mages do we have?"
"Nine, all of us who were assigned to escort you during your trip here were mages. There weren't any among the hunters that we gathered. Even low level mages are rather valuable, so most have to remain in Olta for other purposes."
"How many mages do the tribals have?"
The general draws up a small magic circle with his mana, which flows out of his index finger and floats in the air. As the magic circle completes, it flies into his right eye and makes the eye shine slightly blue. He takes a look across the whole battlefield. As his right eye returns to normal, he speaks: "About 8, 3 guarding their commander, that Rajirson man, and the rest are all the way in their camp."
Danh nods, realizing that he actually doesn't know how useful a low level mage is exactly and making a mental note to learn more. He turns his attention to the giant birds, wondering how to deal with them and, more importantly, get some for himself.
On Rajirson's side of the battlefield, Rajirson speaks, without looking at his side: "Hey chieftain."
Thyrison replies, also without glancing over: "Yes?"
"I'm fucked, am I?"
"Well, aside from very important duties, those egaluses are not usually deployed due to their limited number and usefulness elsewhere. So, no, I would say that you are just overestimating your importance."
Rajirson frowns and questions: "I am a son of a High King, who is ruler of a clan and has many Petty Kings, Earls, Viscounts and headmen as vassals. What are you to say that I have overestimated my own worth?"
Thyrison, still not looking over, calmly replies: "Just a decently competent person with some good family connections. However, I believe you have answered your question. You are just one of the children and also the egaluses are not flying any banners. Therefore, it's most likely that you are not the most or even equal to the most important person here. Most importantly, neither our forces originally have any medium level mage, ignoring the greater shaman that has fled somewhere."
Rajirson pauses for a second and then nods, "Make sense, but if that man over there, Danh as he called himself, is that powerful then wouldn't he have crushed us already."
Suddenly, he pauses for a moment too long. Thyrison was preparing to reply, but is surprised at the odd pause as well and turns over to look at him. After a while, Rajirson says: "Let's say, just hypothetically, if the Dark Lord was actually chosen and he isn't a pretender, would that be him?"
Thyrison replies slowly: "Hypothetically, if the Dark Lord was actually chosen, that person would have started somewhere far away from the Empire under Heaven, like this northern lands. If that person was untrained and lacked the education and experiences to rule, then they have to learn from low level conflict with a simple, single front, like ours against the cultists. More importantly, with the world mostly in peace, they need to be near a country that's in a war or civil war to not be noticed and eliminated, like ours which is almost always in both. Lastly, they need somewhere with many supporters, like the cultists."
A moment of silence followed as two men think about all the other possibilities that a hypothetically Dark Lord could have started in. Then they arrive at the same conclusion,
"Yep, that's the Dark Lord."
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Punishia
Third person POV.
"Ya know, watching the duo figure everything out is pretty entertaining." Lucy stated, watching the holographic projection.
"Agree." Both the Taskmaster and the Succubus Queen replied, also watching.
"Oh, you guys are watching him as well?" The Dark One said after popping up out of nowhere.
Both the Taskmaster and the Succubus Queen immediately prepare to fight, just before realizing who it is and sit back down. Lucy, still seated, answers: "Started watching him since he realized the lack of barbarian raids several weeks ago. The agent I placed there did a decent job hiding the papers and made him or his officials unaware of them."
The Dark One asks, summoning a black chair to sit down as well, "What about those liches that lost their positions or the sudden focus East of the son of whatever-clan-that-was, were those your doings as well?"
"Oh no, the thing with the liches was genuinely the cultists' fault. While the son of the clan was…not the man's fault, at least not completely. My subordinates are still investigating, but I'm sure it's the meddling of Vikar." Lucy answered.
The Dark One nods and then turns his head to the other two, "What about you two? Don't you two have beef with each other?"
They glared at each other for a moment as he said that. Then the Succubus Queen turns to the Dark One with incredible speed and is about to answer, before the Taskmaster hand blocks her mouth. He replies,
"I want to see the new Dark Lord. Not that I am questioning your judgment buHIAACH!"
The Taskmaster's words turn into screams as the Succubus Queen bites down hard on his hand. When the Succubus Queen finally lets the hand go, she answers: "I also want to see how this guy measured up. I also am not questioning your judgmUgh!"
Her air was knocked out of her lungs by the Taskmaster's punch into her stomach. As the two of them begin beating the light out of each other, Lucy finishes their responses:
"The only way to watch the new Dark Lord is using this orb that you modified as he is too isolated to send anyone over quickly."
The Dark One nods and watches as the rest of the tribal delegation arrives on egaluses. They regroup with the egaluses already circling the battlefield and land somewhere on the rear of Rajirson's line. A high shaman has already attempted to figure out the scale of Danh's mana, this time preparing all counter spells she can to break through any protection he might have and handle the expected load. Evidently, either none of them works or his mana is simply just that great as she also collapses, bleeding out from her eyes.
While they are busy discussing how to react to the new Dark Lord, the rest of the zombies are mopped up and both armies fall back to their respective base. Then the decision is made by the tribals to send an official delegation to the Dark Lord with gifts to foster a good relationship for they believe that he will soon share a common enemy with them. They meet with Rajirson, who agrees with the idea. Rather than seeking his opinions, they are just informing him out of politeness.
Then the Dark One suddenly says: "Well, I have to leave now." and immediately disappears. Lucy ignores the two High Lords of Punishia who are still fighting and walks to a small door not far behind her seat. Pressing a button next to the door, a world map appears as a holographic projection, allowing her to zoom in and choose one of the many gateways in the north. After selection, the door lits up and unlocks itself, allowing her to open it and step through.
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South of Rajirson's camp
Third person POV.
As she steps out of the gateway, a man in full plate rushes into the cave where the gateway is hidden. The man takes off his helmet, showing a handsome face that is slowly shifting. Horns grow atop his head and two more eyes open where his eyebrows were as the irises turn red. He kneels in front of Lucy,
"My lady, the Harald clan has accepted the Dark Lord as their future ally. How shall I proceed?"
Lucy nods, "Good work, get them to give the Dark Lord several climate and weather changing spells and rituals, preferably in the form of books, though sending over shamans to instruct his servants work as well. Then dissuade the clan from hiding the information and ensure it spreads to all of the tribes of Cordal."
The man, a devil in disguise, confirms, "Understand, I will ensure the Dark Lord gets his needed gifts and the tribes know of his existence."
Suddenly, the devil glances at the ceiling of the cave. He whispers, "There is"
"I know." Lucy cut him off as she turned around, entering the gateway. Then her tail abruptly lengthens, shooting up to the ceiling of the cave and skewering the heart of the eavesdropper. Her voice echoes from the gateway as the body is gently lowered to the ground, the tail retracting: "Handle him."
The gateway shuts down, losing its light while the devil walks over to check the corpse. He breathes out a sigh in relief as he realizes the eavesdropper was a threat he planned to remove anyway. He transforms back into the face of a normal northerner and carries the corpse away, reciting the fake story he prepared in his mind.