Death - Wards

THE FIRST LINE of Belisatra’s myrmidons came spinning through the ash, slowed only slightly by the particulate, and died as rapidly as they appeared. Inky shadow spread over them, poured from some unseen well, and the life, artificial as it may have been, simply fled their bodies. Even inertia seemed sucked from them, for they ceased spinning instantly and toppled, some tripping the next rank following behind.
Cyclones of bone, not unlike the storms Death had earlier unleashed upon the demonic hordes, rose from the ash, chewing through metal that might just as well have been children’s candy. Forks of black lightning seared the drifting soot, blasting holes through constructs and craters into the ground—and from those craters leapt slavering ghouls to fall upon the enemy with ripping fang and rending claw.
“I’m impressed,” War admitted, admiration for the unfolding mayhem rolling off him in an almost visible aura.
“I should hope so,” Death said. “You’d never believe how difficult and time consuming it was setting those wards in the first place. I’ll be fortunate if I can even muster the patience to re-create them after all this.”
“If you survive this at all.”
“And here everyone says I’m the gloomy one.”
On and on, Death’s necromantic defenses raged; and on and on, Belisatra’s army of constructs advanced, a rising tide of brass and rock. The Horseman, for all his power, never had the slightest doubt which would fail first. His home had never been intended to stand up to a genuine siege.
The black lightning, the swirling bones, the inky pockets all slowed. Fewer constructs triggered the wards, and those wards they did trigger killed fewer constructs. And still the soldiers came, as if the ash itself gave birth to them.
“I wonder,” Death mused idly, “where they found that much brass?”

***

Chapter 28