Death After Death-Chapter 205: Enemies at the Gate

By the time he reached the palace steps, it was worse than he feared. There were almost no defenders left, though in the swirling scrum of combat, it was hard to say for sure. Everyone was wearing the same uniforms.

Simon didn’t worry about that yet though. Instead, he looked around for anyone that looked strange. There were certain to be other mages here, and as soon as he made himself a target, he would be a dead man unless he found them first.

So, instead of opening up with pyrotechnics and killing the men nearest to him, he stood there, content to look like an old man with a sword who was way out of his depth as he studied the crowd. It took only a moment to find a dark-skinned man in robes near the gatehouse. He stood out like a sore thumb against the armored units that filled the plaza, and Simon instantly muttered, “Dnarth Vrazig,” striking him down with a bolt of distant lightning.

The bolt from the blue did little besides kill a few other men near the enemy warlock, but the explosion that engulfed the warlock when he died knocked back dozens more men, tossing them like rag dolls. Simon had been counting on that strange death-activated magic. However, even as the inferno caused combat to cease for a moment and everyone wondered what happened, Simon ignored it. Instead, he was already searching for his next opponent.

He found him across the yard near one of the walls. This one had figured out what was going on and had locked eyes with Simon in his final moment. He was too slow, though, and even as he opened his mouth, another lightning bolt was racing down from the sky. This one was also followed by an explosion.

Suddenly, the attacker’s momentum was gone as they tried to figure out who was attacking them and from where. A moment ago, they had been moments from victory, and now that was in doubt.

As all of this happened, Simon realized that he should probably be standing behind cover himself. True combat was not yet joined, but he was already in a sniper’s duel of sorts.

It was only after another minute had passed and he found no other targets that Simon entered the fray on his own. He had to. Not only were there dozens and dozens of men already in the courtyard, but the legion he’d seen earlier was approaching the main gate, and he needed to drop the portcullis.

There was no way for him to do that from hundreds of yards away, though. Even a major, distant word of force wouldn’t bite through the thick chains of the gates with this much distance between them. He didn’t have a mathematical model for magic yet, but there was definitely a sharp fall-off past a certain point, which meant he needed to cut a bloody swath through the field and get closer.

At first, this was accomplished with his sword. He cleaved right through the first few men to cross his path in quick, casual strokes that severed heads and arms. He saved real magic until the alarm was raised, and he faced a wall of swords and shields. That was when he unleashed his true fury.

“Gervuul Oonbetit!” he called out, using a greater word of force.

This was not to blast them all away, though. This was a guillotine, and it rippled out and away from him in all directions like a drop of water in a still pond. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the twenty men arrayed against him came apart at the seams.

Simon couldn’t enjoy their looks of terrible surprise as the survivors lost limbs and friends. Instead, he immediately cast a boundary of force to deflect the arrows that would certainly be fired at him next. He would have preferred to carve that one in the stone of the courtyard to make it longer lasting, but he could hardly stand still and wait for people to come to him. He was still only halfway across the corpse-strewn courtyard.

That was the sixth spell he’d cast in almost as many minutes, though, and even as Simon whispered his seventh, which was a word of lesser healing, to soothe his already aching throat, he could feel it taking a toll.

How long has it been since I let loose like this? He wondered as he cut down another man brave enough to face him with his enchanted sword.

There was only one answer to that question, of course, and that was the dual on the volcano rim so long ago. In this timeline, it was about a decade and a half in the past, but for Simon, it was decades and one life in the rearview mirror.

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It felt good to flex his muscles like this, but it was worrying too. Even in all his lives, he could still count the number of times he’d fought like this on one hand, and he knew well how unsustainable it was. He’d probably already slain fifty people, but because more kept coming, little had changed, except that now everyone was focused on him.

Still, there was nothing he could do but watch arrows deflect harmlessly away from him as he cut down foes and continued to advance. When he neared the gates and could see the chains, he saw another warlock advancing alongside the unit that was already entering, and he wasted a precious moment, along with another month of his life, to strike that bastard down, too. This one must have known that there was some trouble because he had some sort of protective magic up, and it deflected the bolt wide, killing a swath of armored men instead.

Simon blinked at that. Well, that’s new, he thought, even as he switched tactics. He cast again, but this time, he used a greater word of distant fire. The result was a tiny tornado of flames that descended on the man. He’d cast some kind of flame spell, too, but he either didn’t know the distant word or he’d chosen not to use it because the enemy warlock's flame fell well short of Simon even as the enemy caster was consumed by fire.

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That one did enough damage to his throat that he coughed up blood for a moment and very nearly lost his life when a brave young soldier tried to take advantage of his moment of distraction. He didn’t succeed.

One could not parry a sword with an infinitely sharp edge. So, he lost his life right as the secondary explosion sent the unit marching toward Simon into chaos. He died bravely, at least, which was more than Simon could say about almost everyone else at this point. Few people dared to approach him now. He didn’t blame them.

When he finally reached the gatehouse, his chest was heaving from exhaustion, but he let that delay him only a moment before he said the painful words of greater force in an attempt to shear them in half and bring the portcullis down.

It didn't work, though, and he only coughed up blood for his effort. I thought that would be enough, he told himself, looking at the arm thick steel links that held up the massive portcullis. The giant chain was only cut through on one side, but somehow it still held.

One side was cut clean through, and that seemed to be enough to force the other side to bend, yet it didn’t. It was too high for him to reach with his blade, too, and if he leaped up with a word of force, the enemy would definitely spot him and redouble their focus on him.

Annoyed, he used a word of lesser healing on his throat as he contemplated his options. Another greater word is out, he told himself. And a regular word of force won’t cut it. What does that leave me. I don’t really need to cut it. I just need to weaken in a little and…

Simon’s words trailed off as he realized that if he needed to weaken metal, then he could just use the words of weaken metal and watch the thing warp and corrode over several seconds. Then he said the painful words, “Vrazig Vosden.”

The spell had no visual effect, but the entropy was apparent immediately as the steel began rapidly corroding. After that, all he needed to do was hold the line and wait for it to fail under its own weight.

I’ve won, he thought to himself. No, we won.

Even if the gate hadn’t dropped yet. It would. He could already hear the chain creaking under the heavy weight, and even if someone struck him down right now, he would still seal the palace away from the advancing forces long enough to let the defenders regroup.

But will that be enough? He wondered.

The three Murani warlocks he’d struck down already had surely been central to whatever conspiracy was happening here, but what if there were more. When Simon was spent, couldn't they just force the gates back open? Part of him thought that he should stride out there and continue to do battle for as long as he could. It thought he should purge the city of every last traitor, but the rest of him knew that he was approaching his limits and that he should lie down.

He couldn’t do that yet, either. All he could do was stand at that threshold, fighting and waiting for the damn gate to drop.

“He’ll be a good King,” Simon told himself as he stopped relying on his sword even a little. Instead, he switched to purely destructive magic. Even a blood-sucking dagger or a sword that could slice through steel bordered on useless when they were wielded by arms of lead.

So, instead, he used lightning and fire. He didn’t even bother to try to use major words anymore. He was too spent for that. Instead, his world narrowed to a simple rhythm. Simon would shout a word of power and then whisper the words of lesser healing to fix his throat.

Simon had done a lot of things before. One thing he’d never done, though, was use so much magic in such a short period of time, and it was taking a toll. Still, he promised himself he would stand there forever until the damn gate closed. It would be any second now. He could see the chain link starting to stretch and deform as it parted.

No matter how good his pronunciation or how precise he imagined the effects, every word burned as he spoke it now. Still, the men opposing him died by the score, and the few arrows shot in his direction scattered off the boundary of force protection he’d established earlier.

Simon couldn’t keep fighting, though, not forever. No one could. Eventually, he couldn’t even gasp another light healing spell to soothe his burning throat. He’d burned so brightly and for so long that when the portcullis finally slammed shut inches in front of him, he had no strength left to him. First, his dagger slipped from his grasp, and then after one more slash from his sword, it fell as well, tumbling end over end until it embedded in the stone of the courtyard.

I couldn’t have used thirty years of power in this battle, could I? He wondered, staggering against the gatehouse.

A few men still alive in the courtyard eyed him warily, like he might have some trick left up his sleeve. He didn’t, of course. The only trick he had left was to stay standing.

“If you run… If you jump the walls and flee the city, I may not send you straight to hell with the rest of your friends,” Simon croaked with a ruined voice. As painful as speaking was, at least these words didn’t burn his fraying vocal cords when he said them.

That was all it took. Suddenly, the few scattered survivors were running for their lives. Simon had nothing left, but how could they know that. He’d slain hundreds of men, and those few who remained wanted to live.

As the retreat of the men arrayed against him threatened to become a rout, he finally lost the ability to stand as well, and he slowly sank against the wall until he was just sitting there, leaning against the cool stone. As he sat there, he took in the carnage of what he’d done, but even that wasn’t enough to make him regret it. If this makes me a murderer, then so be it, he decided.

His only regret was that he hadn’t locked in this level in a way to save the progress. That meant that everything he’d done to raise Seyom was gone, and the idea of reliving all of this just to try to raise him even better was too heartbreaking and complicated. “If only I’d killed that damn wyvern,” he whispered to himself as the darkness took him.