The moment Adarin crested the final hillock, he knew he was too late. Skeletons stood in formation at the breach, weapons ready but purposeless without orders. Mages and musketeers had limply collapsed onto the ground and lay wherever they had stood. His breath caught. Are they…

  Adarin slowed down, cold dread tightening its fist in his gut as he walked through the breach, carefully avoiding the bodies of the fallen. No, not the fallen—he leaned over one of them, touching the woman’s throat. There was still a heartbeat, but it was weak and slow, as if she were sleeping. He tried slapping her sharply, yet nothing happened, even though a red mark formed on her cheek.

  Something whispered right next to him: “Do not bother. They will awaken only when I will it.”

  Adarin spun around, cutting a wide arc with his dagger, but it only whooshed through the air. He pivoted his head, running several detection protocols on his sensory input, but the town was eerily silent, the undead standing in formation the last remnant of normalcy.

  As he walked down the street, down the alleyway, bodies—living and wounded alike—were simply… what? Unconscious? Sedated? Comatose? He hesitated, considering whether to go to the still-smouldering ruins of the gatehouse, down the wall, or down the alley.

  “Come now. Forwards. Courageous warrior.”

  Careful, each step sounding like a gunshot in the absolute silence, and only occasionally avoiding a skeleton or a body, he walked down the alley where he had rushed to save Liora. He carefully extended a manipulator around the building’s corner and studied the visual input.

  There she was, held in a princess-carry by the monster. It smirked as it noticed Adarin’s manipulator, bared its fangs, and plunged them into Liora’s throat.

  Adarin wanted to scream, to charge, but his body refused. Shivering, he shuffled forward step by step. Blood spilled, and the creature’s unnatural tongue lapped it up with loud sucking noises. They were the only thing that filled his world.

  He absently noted how the creature licked her face and down her chest as well, far exceeding any area where it could find blood. Disgust twisted his gut.

  Adarin screamed in rage, in frustration, against the powerlessness, against the injustice—after what felt like hours, but what the clock told him had been mere minutes.

  The Nosferati kissed Liora’s torn throat twice, and the wounds sealed. It lowered her down almost gently to the ground and kissed her forehead.

  “I have had my fill,” it rasped, its translucent skin decorated with richly red arteries and purple veins. Its smile spread wider than any human’s should.

  “For now.”

  The moment it exploded into a cloud of small bats, Adarin could move. He charged towards a musketeer, grabbing the groaning man’s musket out of his hands and pointed it into the sky, towards the largest concentration of the swarm. It took a painful second to grow a sub-limb on the manipulator small enough to fit into the trigger guard.

  Adarin roared in pure fury and shot into the fluttering creatures.

  A chuckle engulfed him from all directions. Then the predator was gone, leaving Adarin behind with the aftermath of the battle.

  Adarin was roiling with the anger born of helplessness. As he stalked through the town, the Order's undead soldiers and settlers were swarming all around, digging survivors and corpses out of collapsed cellars, collecting the fallen, putting out fires. Oakridge was built on a circular plan around the central market square and had four roads that circled the entire city, with townhouses in the inner ring and cottages in the outer ones, all encompassed by the now damaged palisade. Sailors were rigging up a new gatehouse and an impromptu fix to where the Commodore had blown the walls.

  The town was, without him having to take any hostile action, effectively occupied. The militia had once numbered six hundred. Four hundred soldiers and a hundred civilians were dead. The town’s four thousand souls were gutted by the loss of a tenth of their number. And again a quarter of its population’s worth of Order soldiers, even excluding the skeletons, were within its bounds.

  The first time I was actually in charge of a conquest. Well, conquest is a strong term for taking over here.

  He walked down the central avenue, studying the enthusiastic sailors and soldiers and the bedraggled townsfolk. He left the crying of those who had lived in the gate quarter, where the fighting had been heaviest, behind. But as he closed in the center of Oakridge, he noticed a lot of young women and men eagerly spending time with the Order’s soldiers and sailors.

  Looks like my men are gonna get lucky tonight. Well… they deserve it after that reptilian shit show.

  Adarin entered the central market square and walked towards the city council’s hall, towards the city crystal, towards the formal surrender of the town. He swallowed hard. We got lucky there. The enemy showed up in thrice its supposed number, and the boss… I should have done better reconnaissance.

  He exhaled through the teeth of his digital avatar and shook his real body like a dog while he walked over the compacted dirt of the market square. Foolish. If the Commodore hadn't organized the troops so well… He shuddered, remembering his setup for a desperate last stand with the breaking militia and six dozen Order troops. He still felt the deep wounds the wyvern’s claws had cut into his wounded flesh.

  As he entered the town hall, his musings grew darker. I have been fighting as if I’m invulnerable, as if nothing in this world can hurt me. Just because it looks primitive doesn’t mean they are weak. If I get hit by enough napalm fireballs, if someone grabs my core and puts it out of reach of wood… He shuddered involuntarily. Or dumps it into the depths of the seas… I might not die, but will I stay sane for the centuries it will take me to leave the ocean?

  On those happy thoughts Adarin entered the central crystal hall. Tables and chairs had been pushed to the side, and an honor guard of the Order, a small one of merely a dozen men and all the leaders of the expedition, the Commodore, Liora, Francesco, and Duchess Viola, stood there.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Of the three delegates that had greeted the Order at the gates, only the merchant Steven Erickson hadn’t been present at the gatehouse when the elder wyvern had unleashed its lightning storm. The merchant was sweating, his eyes shifting with a mix of fear and calculation. A smile slid over Adarin’s avatar’s lips. Good to know the man understands his situation.

  He barely glanced at the lieutenant of the militia, who apparently was the highest-ranking officer of that ragtag band of idiots. Adarin ran facial recognition over his face and didn’t recognize him as any of the men he had seen during the battle. So he found a hidey hole. Well, one way to cut him down if he speaks up.

  The final person seemed more dangerous than the militiaman, who was barely growing a scruffy beard: a matronly, somewhat fat woman who looked as if she was used to breaking up brawls between grown men and coming out on top every time.

  Adarin stopped in front of the crystal. It was much smaller than the one in Portguard, nearly a meter of twisting, beautifully crystalline substance.

  “Commodore, report,” he ordered.

  “Attention,” Ashfield ordered, and the attending musketeers went through the motions of welcoming the commanding officer, as befitted Adarin’s status.

  Adarin barely kept himself from tapping his manipulators on the ground in impatience. Can we get on with this then?

  Duchess Viola stepped forward. “Mr. Erickson, as for the agreement struck with the late Baron Mistlokov, we await the handing over of the town’s keys in recognition of our services rendered onto the town.”

  The merchant inclined his head and pressed his lips together, but the brawling matron spit poison into the negotiations.

  “You defeated the wyverns!? Our men, my—” She swallowed hard, her face flushing with anger. “They died in the hundreds. While you, as the wyverns slaughtered them, held back!”

  The entire delegation on Adarin’s side began bristling and shifting about. Anger flashed in Liora’s eyes, and a spark of lightning actually played between the fingers of Francesco’s left hand. Adarin decided to see what happened next. He remained silent.

  After three long seconds, Francesco exploded. “First your militia ran and routed at every opportunity and excuse that was given to it,” he hissed, then took a deep breath and pressed his eyes shut. His language grew low, developed his usual sophisticated rhetorical cadence again. “Then, when Commander Ashfield,” he gestured at the elderly naval officer, who nodded in agreement, “blew the wall, the militiamen tried to run to what they perceived as safety, nearly leaving our commander—” he gestured to Adarin “—alone and for dead.”

  But the fury of the matron wasn’t done. Even though the merchant was trying to put a hand on her arm, she shrugged him off with an angry, sharp chop. “Our men merely followed orders of their commanders. They are not to blame—”

  Ashfield and Liora spoke up at the same time.

  The Commodore’s voice was measured. “Orders that were in conflict with those of the officers they had themselves suborned to in the midst of battle.”

  Meanwhile Liora hissed, her voice growing low and vicious. “They left their own wounded behind. The order was given by a cowardly man who got what he deserved soon after.”

  As her face grew deep purple, the matron raised her dress up, revealing meaty arms, and took two steps forward. She shrugged off the merchant’s desperate attempt to keep her back. “Come on, say that again, girly.” She hissed with the tone of steam escaping a kettle.

  Adarin couldn’t suppress a grin any longer. I kind of get why Rüdiger enjoys this so much now. Should I…?

  But Francesco made the decision for him. Suddenly he seemed taller, larger. Adarin got the impression of a shadowy monster, a nightmare. One he couldn’t quite remember the moment his eyes went off. A deep growl filled the hall, and the young wizard stepped into the way of the battle-wagon.

  “YOU WILL NOT speak to our officers this way.” A voice, something born from the depths of an abyss, growled at them.

  Not only the town’s delegation yelped and scrambled back—even the Order’s men, especially Duchess Viola, gulped hard and took steps backwards. Yet, suddenly the dread was gone from the room, and there again stood only a young, cultured man.

  “Let’s keep things civil, shall we?” he suggested with a too pleasant smile.

  For a second, Adarin caught the glance of the elderly matron to her thigh, to where a butcher’s cleaver hung on her belt. Oh no you don’t, he growled in the privacy of his mind. But something—possibly wisdom, more likely fear—brought the woman to reason.

  Duchess Viola stepped forward again. “As we were saying, the key of the town…” Francesco touched her arm and they exchanged a glance. The Duchess nodded and focused on a new target. “Lieutenant, how do you evaluate the performance of the militia now under your command?”

  The lieutenant looked between the matronly woman, the merchant, and what he was quickly realizing was the real danger: the delegation of powerful enemy fighters they had led to the middle of their community.

  He stumbled. “The militia…. fought… to the best of their ability.”

  To Adarin’s surprise, the impeccably disciplined Ashfield choked out a barking laugh, and the lieutenant melted in shame. Adarin decided this was a moment to crush them.

  “Say, Lieutenant, I don’t recall your face from the midst of battle. Where were you when the wyverns attacked?”

  “I…” He swallowed, his face reddening with shame. He studied his boots. “I…” Then he straightened and looked straight at Adarin. “I ran. They… they cut down my two elder brothers. I just couldn’t. I tried to save him, but I only had— I didn’t have his legs.” He swallowed hard, and began shivering.

  Duchess Viola stepped forward and put her hand on the man’s shoulder. Adarin nodded privately. Easing off the pressure. Good.

  “Oakridge and you faced a horror few towns, few men ever survive without the blessings of the system. And what you just did—do not think yourself a coward. You did not grasp for excuses. You owned up to your failure in facing the terror of a foe that no man should fight alone. You will do well commanding this town’s militia in the future.”

  The young man looked at her, disbelief in his eyes. Then he swallowed and nodded.

  The rest of the negotiations went much more civil. The town’s symbolic key was handed over. The crystal was registered to Rüdiger’s realm as they had done with so many town and village crystals before.

  People who thought themselves subtle kept glancing into the hall, and Adarin frowned as he noticed Francesco looking to the side far too often. A red-haired girl in a very light dress, wearing a crown of flowers, exchanged smiles with him and ignored the daggers Liora’s eyes were shooting at her.

  What is going on there?

  As the negotiations finished and a toast of wine was raised, the merchant cleared his throat.

  “Despite the tragedy, despite all that happened, I believe it is important not to forget that this is a glorious day for Oakridge. To welcome our bright future and to remember the fallen as they should be remembered, I and the other merchants of Oakridge will be organizing a town festival in the market square this evening. Honored magi of the Order of the Invisible Hand, would you care to grace us with your presence?”

  Adarin motioned Duchess Viola to speak.

  “It would be a pleasure to do so, Mr. Erickson.”

  The merchant smiled, but all Adarin noticed was a subtle wrongness that kept creeping into his stomach as Francesco’s romantic interest assessed him with a look far too cold for a girl smitten with a foreigner.