Mark of the Fool

Where there was once an unassuming hole in the side of a hill in the Coille Forest, a small fortress of wood, earth and stone, now stood.

More than three hundred yards of vegetation had been cleared from the mouth of the Cave of the Traveller, and an intimidating log wall stretched around the hill. A trench—lined with rows of wooden stakes sharp enough to pierce Ravener-spawn lay in front of it.

Two watchtowers soared above either side of the rampart’s solid gates, and behind them was a camp—awash with tents, wooden barracks and guardhouses.

Between the wall and the Coille stood a sea of stumps, left from the trees that were lumbered to build the fortifications.

And that sea was suddenly alive with Ravener-spawn.

From the Coille, Silence Spiders poured.

Hundreds of Ravener-spawn soldiers.

Thousands of workers.

And dozens of Hive-Queens.

Uncounted monster bodies overran the trench, unaffected by the spikes.

Bladed legs silently gripped the walls, scaling them, as both soldiers and workers noiselessly gnashed their teeth. Hive-Queens simply reared up, shooting their webbing, attaching it to the hill and pulling themselves over the rampart.

The killing started the instant they breached the Thameish camp. 𝐟𝗿ee𝘄𝗲𝗯𝐧o𝘃el.𝐜o𝚖

“This cannot be,” the head priest swung his mace at the head of a silence-spider soldier, connecting. The weapon—encased in holy light—split its skull in a single stroke, but two quickly replaced it.

The horrified holy man fought at the Cave’s mouth, alarmed as the fort—one he’d commanded so proudly for over a year now—was overrun in seconds. The hive-queens were far too devastating, their soldiers much too deadly and their workers too numerous to be slowed.

Desperately, the garrison held the line at the cave mouth, using the small opening as a chokepoint.

But how long could they last?

He swallowed, deciding on an awful course.

“Wizards forward!” he cried. “Loose fire!”

One of his subordinates shouted at him, her eyes horror-stricken. “But, we can’t! If we fireball the camp we’ll kill—”

“We must! The Traveller and Uldar will reward their sacrifice in the after-world!” his voice sounded shrill. “We have to thin the enemy: by the Traveller and Uldar, how did this happen? They came from nowhere!”

The wizards under his command looked at each other, likely for reassurance, and nodded grimly.

Reluctantly, they began casting the spells that would doom many of their comrades, and hopefully, buy the rest of them precious time.

A massive surge of mana suddenly exploded through the air, bringing a wave of concentrated power raining from the sky, coalescing in beams of blinding light. The rays undulated like snakes, striking ten hive-queens before they could even twitch.

Those enormous Ravener-spawn turned to ten columns of dust in a flash.

For a heartbeat, all on the battlefield froze in shock.

Moments later, Ravener-spawn were withering.

Soldiers and workers shrivelled, turning to drying husks in the blink of an eye, soon joined by the remaining hive-queens. They withered, silently screaming as magic from an unseen source ravaged their bodies.

The head priest gaped. “By Uldar! By the Traveller! It’s a miracle!”

“No, it’s the General!” a wizard pointed to the sky.

The head priest leaned forward, peering up at the sky beyond the Cave mouth. Indeed, floating there was Alexander Roth, General of Thameland, surrounded by a nimbus of power.

And beside him were five enormous iron golems with strange, tube-like devices covering one arm.

He was aiming his staff in the direction of the Coille, the air was shimmering around him.

Towering eagles with feathers the colour of emeralds, materialised in the sky, screeching into the wind. Uttering one word, the Hero directed them, sending the eagles swooping down, snatching up withering hive-queens.

Great talons and beaks pierced insectile bodies.

Others were crushed in grips of steel.

Eagles soared high in the sky—climbing to terrifying heights with a few titanic wing beats—dropping their quarry to their deaths.

With a wave of his hand, the young archwizard sent a wave of light pulsing through the Thameish army; the guardians of the Cave of the Traveller swelled with power.

“For the Traveller!” they cried, lifting newly glowing weapons high, setting upon their enemies with unflinching courage and terrible strength.

Moments before, hordes of silence-spiders had been mangling the Thameish soldiers and priests with abandon, overwhelming them with numbers.

Now, those same priests and soldiers were butchering Ravener-spawn like helpless slabs of meat.

“Forward!” the head priest shouted. “The General and the Traveller have blessed us! Destroy these filthy creatures, send their soulless husks back to the pits where they were spawned!”

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He raced ahead, leading a charge outside the Cave, reinforcing the rallying army.

They would take back their fortification.

And they would not allow the Ravener’s-spawn to enter it again.

Floating above the battlefield, Alex could hear his heart pounding in his ears.

Below, the tide was turning, but it had been a very near thing.

‘If I’d been even a little bit later, they would’ve been overrun. How much of Thameland has already been overrun?’ he wondered. ‘Shit, I need to work faster!’

He glanced at Shale’s golems, all five hovered in the air under the power of his flight magic. They were silent. Still.

But not for long.

Floating over to them, he touched two of the twenty–foot guardians, teleporting them and landing inside the camp.

“Protect the mortals!” Alex commanded the pair. “Guard this place, don’t let any monsters enter this camp, apart from the ones I’ll be summoning! If any of our enemies get in, kill them! But remember, protect the humans!”

The golems’ heads turned toward him.

Two metallic clangs echoed through the air as their hands snapped into fists.

Then, they followed his instructions, zealously.

Glowing from the power of Army of Heroes, the two massive golems crushed Ravener-spawn soldiers and workers beneath enormous feet, rupturing insectile carapaces with every step.

They turned their attention to the fort’s wooden walls—towering over them— aiming their Gale Force Cannons.

The high-pitched hum of a charge building grew, and Alex felt intensepower rising in the weapons.

Beams of blinding white light blew from the tubes, lancing through the air. Lightning crackled, a wave of heat shimmered around the beams, slamming into oncoming Ravener-spawn hordes like fountains of molten lava. Soldiers nearby cried out, jumping back, shielding their eyes from the searing light while recoiling from the heat.

The beams—as thick around as Claygon’s waist—mowed down lines of Ravener-spawn. Carapaces vanished. Innards boiled, turning to dust. Silence-spiders, standing too near the beams’ path, had their bodies warped from the waves of force—chitin cracked—making them dance gruesomely as lightning arced from the beams, electrocuting them.

Alex watched in awe as hive-queen torsos vanished, beams passed through them, punching into the forest beyond, leaving fiery paths of destruction through the woodland.

His jaw dropped. “By the Traveller, Toraka, I could kiss you right now!”

When the beams at last ebbed, hundreds of Ravener-spawn lay dead, smouldering in heaps.

The remaining horde froze for a long moment.

Then, they resumed their charge.

‘The golems will have to recharge,’ Alex thought. ‘I’ll need to summon more—’

Shale’s iron constructs fired before the General had finished his thought.

Beams tore through the Ravener-spawn once again, sending more silence-spiders to nothingness.

The golems fired again.

And again.

Once their weapons were charged, they needed little time to unleash another barrage of magical annihilation on Thameland’s enemies…the weapons showed no sign of slowing down or overheating.

Alex smiled. “Thank you, Toraka,” he whispered, waving his staff.

He summoned a horde of Elder Water Elementals to hunt through the forest, killing Ravener-spawn, and extinguishing fires created by Shale’s devastating weapons.

Alex called to the soldiers of Thameland. “Hold the line here! We’re taking the fight to the Ravener and we’re going to shred every last one of its spawn to nothing! My magic will stop fear from clouding your hearts for a time! So fight on! Fight for Thameland! The Traveller will protect us!”

“For Thameland! For the Traveller! For Uldar!” the army cried.

Alex nodded, then looked at the mouth of the Cave.

“Hannah, if you’re going to get free of the after-world, then I pray you do it sooner rather than later,” he whispered.

With those words, he teleported away.

“Keep your arms steady, soldiers of Alric!” the commanding priest cried. “We need your nerves steady and your aim even steadier! Loose! I swear if a single one of you has arrows or quarrels left by the time those spawn make it to the walls, I’ll send you all to Uldar myself!”

The soldiers roared, redoubling their efforts.

Bowstrings twanged.

Crossbow cranks turned.

Catapult arms groaned as they launched three hundred pound stones over the walls.

The projectiles sailed above the fields outside Alric, landing among the oncoming horde.

Paul grimaced. They might as well have been flicking coins at them for all the good most of that did

Priests were making rounds along the walls, blessing the soldiers’ projectiles. The idea was to give them extra bite, but—even then—most of the missiles offered scant help.

Blessed arrows punctured bone-charger hides, but bounced off their armoured skulls, doing nothing to the thick armour covering their heads. Blessed catapult stones crushed bone-chargers and cracked behemoths’ armour, barely making a dent in their number.

The horde was simply too big, and too well armoured.

And more kept coming.

From the forest and fields beyond, more bone-chargers and behemoths joined the initial horde. If anything, the monsters’ numbers were growing.

And from the cries of horror coming from the eastern wall, the defenders weren’t having much luck against the chitterers’ and gibbering legions.

“Think I could get one of them with my spear before they eat us?” Peter cried, unleashing another crossbow bolt.

“Don’t see why not!” Paul shouted, loosing a quarrel. He cursed as it skidded off a bone-charger’s head, then began to turn the crank. A glance at his quiver gave him some dire news. He had three shots left. Still, he forced a smile. “Hells, I’ll get three of them!”

“Pfft, they’ll have you for lunch before you can even stick one!” Peter fired back, a forced grin fixed below his terrified eyes.

“Tell you what.” Paul finished cranking. “I bet you I kill more than you. We can compare when we get to the after-world.”

“Sounds good.” Peter shouldered his crossbow, aiming it at a behemoth’s eye. “You know what?” I’ll start by killing the one I’m aiming at.”

“Tell you what? You take it down and I’ll buy you a drink when we get to Uldar’s halls in the after-world!” Paul forced a smirk on his face, fighting the near overwhelming urge to throw down his weapon and run away screaming.

But, where would he run to?

“Sounds good.” Peter took careful aim.

The behemoth was closer now. Almost close enough for Peter to smell the stench of its breath.

He exhaled slowly.

Then touched the trigger.

The crossbow’s string twanged.

Its iron limbs sprang out.

The quarrel flew free.

Peter and Paul’s eyes followed the glowing missile as it twirled toward the enormous Ravener-spawn.

It flew right in the monster’s gaping maw.

Without warning, a crackling beam of light blasted the creature, erasing its head and most of its upper torso. The beam continued onward, tearing a line of devastation through the horde of bone-chargers and behemoths behind it, leaving a trench of burning bodies and blackened dust in its wake.

The two guards’ jaws fell open.

Peter slowly looked at Paul.

“G-guess, I win,” he muttered, his eyes unfocused.

“Yeah, guess you do…beer in Uldar’s halls is on me…” Paul answered.

Both turned around.

And screamed.

Standing almost directly behind them was a towering iron golem perched atop a mound of earth that they were sure wasn’t there a few seconds before. The construct towered over the rampart, pointing a weapon of magic at the attackers.

A heartbeat later, it fired a blast. Then another.

Behind the eastern wall, an identical golem unleashed the same beams of death, and beyond the rampart, chitterers and gibbering legions screamed.

Floating above the town of Alric…

“Oh by the Traveller!” Peter cried. “It’s that young Roth boy, ain’t it?”

Paul looked up.

He’d heard the Roth boy was the Fool of Thameland, and that he’d been elevated to some fancy new ‘General’ Mark.

But he couldn’t have imagined the change the former baker’s assistant had been through in the nearly three years since Paul had last laid eyes on him.

Gone was the skinny, silly baker’s assistant.

Now, there he was, a Hero, like the ones from legend, powerfully muscled, wrapped in an aura of power and calling a seemingly endless number of monsters, while raining death down on Thameland’s enemy.

Tears sprang to Paul’s eyes.

“Looks like we might be living yet, Peter!” he cried.

“Aye!” Peter laughed, grabbing his fellow guard by the shoulders. Tears streamed down his face, but his smile was elated. “All hail the General!” he screamed. “And thank the Traveller for saving us!”