Lich, Please 91: Ninety-Nine Problems

Chapter 91

Ninety-Nine Problems

The undead abominations smash into the shield line. I catch a glimpse of mad eyes, rotting flesh peeling back from bared teeth and outstretched limbs before the world explodes into chaos. The abominations do not fight—they rage. They are stupid; creatures of anger and pain, propelled by a brute savagery and a complete disregard for their own wellbeing. They are incredibly dangerous en masse. And they are immensely strong, stronger even than my wights.

They are also contagious. If they get into the sea, the undead plague will be unstoppable.

“Fire!” I yell to the engineers. To anyone who is listening really. “Fire if you can! Use your holy water!”

The draugr dash their clay holy bombs to the ground, splashing the water against the tide of abominations. It is a drop in this ocean of madness. A score of abominations fall, but moments later the draugr are swept under the stampede. Sir Arkwright cuts a savage circle around himself, leaping in front of me to cleave one in half, whirling to block a grabbing hand and shattering radius and ulna.

“Don’t protect me!” I shout, twirling my axe, and laying about with all the strength of my undead body. “Protect the siege engines!” But it is already too late.

The abominations are swarming the engines. The skellies are fighting hand to hand. One by one they are ripped from the trebuchet’s sides and sent flying. I fight my way towards them. The ground around me is soon splattered with flesh chunks, bits of brains and various limbs but it is not enough. Two of the trebuchets manage to fire their payloads.

The holy water is badly aimed but still fells a couple score abominations. My engineers are torn limb from limb before the rest can get off the ground.

“Decipula alma,” I whisper, kicking an abomination in the stomach, and slashing another across the belly with my axe. All the dead abominations’ souls flood into my veins. What can I do? If I cast ‘Glacies tempestas’ I will freeze my own troops solid.

With a scream of frustration I cleave a man in two and push the remains aside. Last time I fought the abominations I lost an arm. If I stay in the melee I fear I, too, will be overwhelmed.

“Solem fero!” bellows Sir Arkwright, behind me.

Twin balls of black energy appear rotating around his sword. Each piece of flesh they touch turns to smoking ruin, each bone, each face, but it is still not enough. I lose sight of him as he is pulled into the ravening press. I need to do something, or I will lose this battle and this is just not an acceptable outcome.

It is hard to think and fight, but I somehow manage both. Crack! I sever a spine, and stomp on the still ravening owner. The siege engines are out of action, but my aerial troops are still holding their own against Janvier’s remaining dragons. Crunch. This old woman’s bones are so brittle. More aerial troops, that’s it. I need more!

With a roar, I smash my fist through the face of a temple guard, and decapitate a dead baker. Fighting off the clutching hands I race across the ice, leaving a grisly trail in my  wake.

Ahead is the hole in the ice, the huge black wound in the floe that the beastie made as it plunged out of the sky, locked in the grip of Janvier’s spell.

I do not slow down, instead I run faster, and dive in headfirst, my arms extended before me.

It is a long way down. Long enough that I have time to consider the folly of this action. My axe bangs off the jagged icy sides, and I almost lose my grip, scraping my knuckles and banging my pauldrons. But then I hit the freezing water like a slap, and I am enveloped in the quiet of the cold winter ocean. Instantly my head clears.

Fumbling, I manage to shove my axe through my belt, and push my way forward with powerful strokes. I assume that it would normally be dark down here, under the suppressive weight of all those ice floes, but the seafloor is gleaming with gentle luminance. The ghost fire burns contentedly to one side, nestled snugly on the ocean floor. By its spectral light I can see rocks and boulders, skeletal corals standing out in scabrous fans, juts of timber, and scraggy bits of sea life that have managed to survive the frigid temperatures.

But where is my beastie?

A faint crackle of lightning answers my unspoken question. There in the distance, I can see a dejected hunk of ice on the sea bottom, trailing tentacles in the slow current. I swim towards it. Several stunned fish float past, all of them drifting belly up, all of them missing their eyeballs. Not so badly injured then, if it can still attend to its hobbies.

When I reach the frozen beastie, I stand looking at it, my arms akimbo. Well, sort of stand. My body is angled the right way, although my feet aren’t actually touching the seabed. A current tugs at me, making it hard to stay upright. My hair floats around my head like a starry halo. Or so I like to imagine.

“Look at you,” I say. The tentacles wiggle pathetically and the beastie lets out a dull moan. It must be feeling emotional if it is moved to vocalisation. “Alright, alright, let’s get you out of this mess.”

Carefully, I chip away at the chunks of ice with my axe. I have to be very careful. I do not want to accidentally sever more of its limbs, the poor thing has already lost two or three. If I find them later perhaps I can sew them back on. It is difficult, delicate work. The water makes it hard to aim, and harder to swing accurately. Despite this, the beastie is soon free.

I suspect the beastie could have freed itself without that much trouble, all on its own. After all it is monstrously strong, with the lighting that crackles through its veins like ever living wildfire. I suspect it is just feeling a bit overwhelmed. All the people, and the noise and excitement of the  battle. Sometimes we all need a little encouragement and a timeout on the bottom of the dark ocean floor.

It is nice down here—muffled and quiet. Everything moves slowly. I would be tempted to stay longer but I am painfully aware that with every passing second more of my people are dying.

“Feeling better now?” I ask the beastie. My voice sounds strange underwater, gurgling and low. But the beastie seems to hear it, and understand. It nods, flicking the last bits of ice away with disdain. It has acquired a new set of octopus eyes, which it shows to me and then sticks proudly onto the outside edge of its shell where it completes the decorative spiral of eyeballs. Mine is still in the centre. “Very nice,” I say. “Well done.”

The beastie moves its tendrils questioningly towards the surface.

“One moment,” I say.

Timothy said there were shipwrecks all over the ocean floor. And there they are, I can see them: ships buried in the silt and sand at the harbour’s edge, overgrown with weeds and barnacles. Can I raise them? Will they be able to do anything against the abominations? It doesn’t matter, whatever I do it needs to be fast.

“Vita mutatur, non tollitur,” and then for good measure, “Resurgemus iterum.”

Apparently, even under the water, the Whisperer is listening.

There is a jolt of energy. A tug almost as intense as the one I felt when I raised the spirit of Dunbarra Keep. Power leaches from my body, streaming away from me in every direction, exploding out of me like a seastar of intense green light. Briefly, the space under the  ice glows like the heart of moss-green sun. For a moment a man’s face appears before me, washed in shades of cerulean and turquoise, the vision rippling like waves. Panic grips me, but then I realise it is not the Whisperer. Not this man with crinkled eyes of seablue and a slow smile. I blink and he is gone, if he was ever there in the first place.

What have I done? I have done something, something and more than something. More than I intended. There are more wrecks down there than I realised. More ancient bodies, hidden by the embrace of the deep. Another gasp, another tug. My veins contract, the flesh on my bones shrinks and shrivels. My breastplate is suddenly loose. Curses. But it is of no moment. The old wrecks of Fairhaven Harbour are rising to answer my call. The old wrecks and the new. They stir in the sludge, not just from the immediate sea bed but from beyond—from the bottom of the deep sea canyon, that plummets into darkness just below the harbour entrance.

I do not wait to see exactly what I have raised, but grab the beastie and shout. Together we soar up through the water, towards the surface, and the ghost ships follow us, up, up, up and out. Salt water dashes against my eye. We explode into the air with a gush of glittering drops and spectral light.

“Attack!” I shout, waving my axe like a banner. “Attack!”

I look around wildly. The cracked icedome that is Fairhaven is behind us.

The beastie performs a sharp turn and barrels towards the battlefield tentacles wriggling in excitement. A cheer goes up from on high. My aerial troops, a little thinner than they were before, all of them ragged and battle weary, are waving their weapons and screaming with glee.

And they are right to cheer. Behind me the ships pour out of the sea, rising vertically, spectral sails puffing with long remembered wind. They follow the currents of the air as easily as if they were water. Transparent pennants and flags ripple, on ghostly decks, long dead crews ready their weapons. My ghost fleet is a mismatched bunch of junks and dinghies, merchant traders and ships of war, all those who died during the freeze of the lich king’s perpetual winter.

It is only fitting, I think smugly, as I catch Janvier’s eye.

From further out in the bay ancient vessels are rising from the dark, deep waters of the ocean trench, spirit galleons with gaping holes in their sides, disturbed from centuries of rest. And it is not just ships. My spells have pulled all the dead of the ocean from their peace. People, fish, whales, sharks and at least three enormous deep sea squid. Bony fingers grasp the ice. My ‘Resurgemus iterum’ has called up some of the old skeletons too. People dumped in the sea to die, or already dead.

With the addition of the ghost army at my back the tide of battle turns abruptly. Spectral shark teeth tear into abominable flesh, transparent arrows pierce rotting hearts, ghost blades slice through dragon sinew and abominations alike. Best of all the abominations have no recourse. The only thing that can turn aside a ghost blade is another ghost blade, or shield, and the raging undead have neither. They flail ineffectually as they are mown down.

Janvier raises ghost wurms and dragons to swell his ranks but I can see the desperation in his eyes. He wields a ghost blade with deadly effect, but he is only one man, lich though he may be. Of course there is one easy way for him to destroy my ghost army: by killing me.

Distracted by the sight of a ghost dragon chasing a gleaming galleon across the arc of the sky, I do not see the trap until it is too late. The beastie swerves to avoid a huge ice boulder, and crashes into the path of three dragons approaching from above, below and one side. I am knocked from the beasties back, and go spinning through the air, my skirts billowing.

The drop would doubtless have seen my bones splintered on ice below, but Rachel and Elizabeth swoop in. They try to catch me, and fail, but succeed in breaking my fall. I bounce hard off Elizabeth’s bony back, Rachel’s hands missing me by an inch. I drop the remaining way, to land, hard and irate one one knee with cracks with the force of my descent.

Sweeping my head up with a toss, shaking my hair, but before I can collect myself I have to dive sideways, or be broiled by the vicious blue flame of Janvier’s passing dragon. My refuge is poor; the remains of a trebuchet, but it is better than nothing. I roll out of the way as Janvier’s dragon swoops past. With a roar of rage, I hurl a corpse after them, clipping Janvier on the shoulder.

He falls from his stead with a satisfying thump, and skids across the ice. His eyes are blazing as he rises. His helmet is half worn away, his steel plate eroded and eated through in patches by the acid like enthusiasm of my potion.

“You filthy wretch. Just as brainless now as you were in life, you mud-scrapping witch. What will you do now? Strangle me with your pretty little flowers?” He draws his great silver blade with a rasping hiss and stalks me across the ice.

“Looking a bit rough there, Janvier,” I say, grabbing a handful of ash and stuffing it in my pocket. “Coming to give me a lesson in swordplay? Again?”

Lightly, I leap over the trebuchet, ignoring the creak of my cracked kneecap, and brandish my trusty war axe at him.

“What happened to your skin, Maud?” he growls. “Did you lose your body again? Or did it rot away like your brain? A pity your cheap tricks won’t help you here.”

The great silver blade whistles through the air, a hair's breadth from my nose. Or where my nose used to be. I block with the shaft of my axe. Our faces are so close I can see the madness in his eyes. He is so intent on intimidating me he does not see the corpse coming. It clobbers him on the side of the helmet and he falls back in alarm.

“You were saying?” I grasp another body by the slippery ankles and throw it at him. Dead bodies make surprisingly good weapons. So many places to grab. So delightfully unseemly.

He cuts this one down the middle with a roar.

“There is no making up for lack of skill,” he bellows, dark runes etch themselves along his blade, skittering up and down in blackest night.

“Skill at what? Formal duelling? Why should I indulge your asinine hobbies?” I hurl someone’s head at him, followed by an arm, another arm and then a torso.

The silver blade whistles toward my head and I duck.

“Maud,” he says, and the condescension is so thick I’m surprised I don’t slip on it. “Do you really think this will help? I tried to make it easy for you, but you are just prolonging the inevitable. In a strange way, I’m going to miss you.”

“Miss me?” I blurt, eyes on that gleaming silver blade. I reach behind me for another limb.

“You have not felt it then?” Janvier pauses, laughing down at me. “The moment your phylactery was destroyed?”

My chest tightens. He is bluffing. He is bluffing.

“Where do you think Phylas is?” he grins.

I make a small, feral noise in my throat. I will deal with Phylas next.

“He is at Downing,” Janvier continues, “and by now he will have found and destroyed your phylactery like so many others before. I believe he is something of an expert.”

He must be bluffing.

“What about you?” I say with a sly smile. “You did not feel it when your phylactery moved? But then you never did pay much attention to your family, did you?” For a moment his eyes tighten. “Tell me you felt it,” I taunt, reaching into my pocket with one hand, scrambling for the contents. “Tell me you felt it when I removed the crown from your statue’s head? At the bottom of that deep, deep icy lake.”

“You are lying!” he screams, and he rushes forwards, bringing down his blade two handed. I do not parry.

“Vita mutatur, non tollitur,”  I whisper.

The ash in my hand bursts into flames and I fling it into his face.

I scream as the blade severs my arm at the shoulder. He screams as the ghost fire burns into his flesh, searing his eyes, crisping the remains of his flesh, cooking him alive in his armour. He rolls in the ice, trying to extinguish what cannot be extinguished. Fingers shaking, blackening as the fire eats through tendon and flesh alight he fights to remove his helmet. The moment he does I bring down my old notched and chipped axe, one handed, parting his head from his shoulders.