Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 136-137 (Patreon)

Ch. 136 - Breakwater (part 2)

“You will never strike me down,” the Templar grunted, even though, truthfully, he wasn’t sure how many more of those he could take. 

That blow would kill any normal man, and it had been nearly enough to do him in as well. He cursed himself for not expecting such an obvious trap that he’d seen once before. The oddly distended bodies of the things had all but given away the trap, but he’d been too focused on chopping them to pieces to notice.

So many people had died around him in the last half hour that he was practically overflowing with power. This included almost all the men that he’d brought with him, many of the nearby residents, and even some of the reinforcements that had been sent once word of the giant beast had made its way to their small reserve force stationed in the main square.

Every one of those deaths would be turned into another soldier in this awful war if he didn’t beat this thing back, here and now, though. Brother Faerbar was sure of that much. That was what made him grip the sword and increase the light that was flowing to it despite the pain from his wounds, which still hadn’t finished knitting shut. 

“Vile creatures!” he yelled as another one exploded not so far away, triggering a chorus of screams. “You have no place here among the living!”

This time, he didn’t run toward them again. He merely stood there and closed his eyes as he channeled as much of the light as he could bear into his sword, and it continued to swell with brightness. At first, it was so bright that he could see the veins in his eyelids, but moment by moment, they became almost translucent as he burned brighter and brighter. 

The Templar poured all of the energy he’d scavenged from the souls he’d saved as well as the thin trickle of prayers that the people of Rahkin were offering up to him, and for a moment, he felt like a true avatar of his dead god even though it all but overwhelmed him. Despite everything that had happened, there were still some who believed in the light, and he would reward that belief. 

At first, he was a bonfire, then he was a beacon, and finally, even though he was almost completely blinded in this moment, he was sure that he was brighter than even the eternal flame that had once graced the tallest tower in all of Siddrimar that had been lit centuries before, at the city’s founding, to drive the darkest shadows back each night. 

Even though he couldn’t see what he was doing to the enemy, though, he could hear it and smell it. Cries of agony and anger erupted from the throats of the dead, including the subsonic bellowing of the lumbering kraken zombie. Worse, though, was the smell.

All of this purified flesh had smelled awful from the moment the battle had started. Not even the briny scent of the sea could cover it up. Brother Faerbar didn’t think that anything could make it worse, but he’d been wrong. 

The blazing light that he was channeling was enough to boil them alive in their skins, turning them from rotting corpses into charred ones. Despite being blinded by his light, he could smell purification and smoldering smokiness blending together in a way that was almost sickly sweet. 

It disgusted him, but he couldn’t wretch now. Not while he was channeling so much power. It was just one more distraction, like the roars of the wounded kraken or the burning sensation coming from his hands. 

Finally, after almost a minute of burning like the sun itself, he finally got the reaction he was looking for, and one by one, the explosive zombies ignited, detonating where they lay, shriveled up on the ground. In combat, they would kill their opponents, but laying there in torment, they would kill only themselves. 

When the detonations stopped, and he felt very nearly drained by the power he unleashed, he finally released it, letting his sword drop to the ground as its light suddenly died. It was still a length of red hot metal, but it was warped and useless now. He would need another one before continuing to press the fight. Before that, though, he would need to let his eyes adjust to the now overwhelming darkness and give his hands a moment to heal. 

Brother Faerbar winced in pain as he looked at them. They were a charred ruin, and he could see his finger bones in places, but already fresh flesh was growing over those terrible injuries. Even the gifts of the light were not without a cost. 

When the spots finally cleared from his vision, he looked out at the carnage that his light had wrought. The whole waterfront was a warzone, from one end to the other, now. Amongst the carnage, the most obvious thing was the giant zombie kraken.

The flesh of its face had been cooked, and even though it didn’t seem to have a proper skull, its giant, dull eyes had exploded, and the bones of its jaw were exposed beneath sheets of cooked, sloughed-off flesh. 

The soldiers that had arrived held a wide cordon, but everywhere between here and there, there were scorched bodies, shattered buildings, and streets pock-mocked with craters. He couldn’t join them yet, though. He could barely flex his hands. The flesh was still too raw and new. 

Instead, he studied his surroundings, looking for the next threat. Nothing new was boiling up from the water’s edge, and no zombies besides the blind giant still moved on the battlefield. He was fairly sure that as soon as they found a way to bring it down, they would be done here. That’s when he noticed the shadow. 

Brother Faerbar glimpsed it out of the corner of his eye and whirled as he raised his fists to fight the shadowy figure, but it didn’t move. It took him a few seconds to realize not that it was just a shadow but that it was his shadow. 

Somehow, it had been burned into the whitewashed wall behind him by the strength of the light he’d been holding in front of him. He wondered how that had occurred exactly, but unsure, he turned away after a moment’s study. 

If I want the answer, I will probably have to ask a mage, he thought glumly. 

While Jordan hadn’t been a bad sort as far as mages went, the Templar could see his damaged soul, even after only a few years of time spent using magic. He had no desire to look into the withered souls of their untrustworthy allies any more often than he had to. This would be just one mystery, he supposed, as he checked his hands and turned back to face his enemy. 

He still didn’t have much sensation, but by now, his hands were relatively whole again, and they moved properly as he wiggled his fingers and checked his grip while the zombified Kraken bellowed and lashed out blindly. Brother Faerbar looked around the nearest corpses for a sword he could use. While he typically favored giant, heavy blades that could shatter and cut these foul contracts with equal ease, this time, he was looking for something smaller. He ended up finding a dagger and a short sword that worked equally well. 

So, taking one in each hand, he slowly approached the blind, flailing beast. Once he had its erratic pattern down, he sprinted toward its mouth, even as all the other warriors that were still standing stood as far back as they could. 

He didn’t pay attention to them, though. Instead, he waited until the beat’s jaws were opened as wide as possible, and then he jumped inside them. If the light hadn’t done much more than burn out its eyes and scorch its skull, then the only place that he could possibly strike down such a monster was deep inside. 

It was possible that the dark mind that had created this had planned for such an eventuality, of course. It might well have defenses for just such an orthodox attack. He might fight his way inside the belly of the beast to find traps, blades, or even another explosion that would tear him limb from limb. 

Brother Faerbar didn’t think that likely, though. Not only did the constructions that the darkness make reek of pride in addition to all their other smells, but this one had been carrying especially volatile cargo. It seemed unlikely to him both that the darkness would destroy something that it worked so hard to build, and accidentally detonating those explosive zombies he’d fought earlier would have amounted to much the same thing. 

He didn’t have time to think about much more than that, though. Once he was sliding down its gullet, he was too busy focusing on doing as much damage as possible on the way down, as well as trying not to suffocate. 

The choking chemical smells of preservatives and decay were not something that had risen to the level of threat in his mind, but now that he was past the point of no return, they proved to be the largest hazard of all. Still, he persisted, slicing through chemically hardened flesh that only parted that much easier once both of his newfound blades began to glow lightly. 

Brother Faerbar fought his way to the pit of the thing’s stomach one attack at a time but found no new dangers. When he reached that awful place, the thing attempted to vomit him back up so that it could chem him to pieces, but no matter how hard it tried to expel him, his blades anchored him to the walls of its esophagus.

Then, finally, he was through the wall of that organ and loosed inside the abdominal cavity, where he could do even more damage. It was here he found the real problem with his plan. Despite the fact that the Templar was relatively unrestricted, there really wasn’t any one terrible weak spot he could strike and end the thing. Though it flailed and pulsed, he was relatively safe from those motions thanks to the metal reinforcing skeleton that had been installed in place. 

He struck at the heart and even managed to sever a few things that looked like spinal cords, but they weren't. Brother Faerbar attacked anything that looked even a little important or vulnerable, but these attacks enraged the creature more than they slowed it down. 

He destroyed in minutes what had probably taken months or years to create, but he didn’t care. He might never feel clean again after this because of all the blood and slime, but he was going to stop this monster before he could kill anything else if it was the last thing he did.

Ch. 137 - A Long Night

Though the soldiers manning the defenses of Rahkin might have thought that all of its forces had taken the field, thanks to the seemingly endless waves of dead that assaulted them, that had not been the case. Even as waves of zombies attacked the high stone walls from every direction, and Tenebroum’s cavalry and other stranger units scaled the walls in an attempt to breach them, its general had been holding back the main body of its forces for the right moment. 

The plans of the dark Paragon had been wearing away at the city’s reserves and their defenders' nerve for weeks now, but tonight might be the night that the city of Rahkin would finally buckle beneath the strain. Then, it would finally feast on the tens of thousands of souls that sheltered inside in a single night. 

It needed no survivors from this wretched place that had refused its offer and damaged its envoy. She was still being stitched back together but would never be as beautiful as she once was.

“Unexpected,” the quiet spirit that was its dark Paragon said as it watched the battle from a hill well outside the range of battle. 

The Lich was focused on its own thoughts, so it took a moment to understand its general’s uncertainty. Unlike the Paragon, Tenebroum did not attend tonight in person because it did not expect the city to fall from the first blow. 

Instead, it watched from a hundred different angles as a swarm of red-eyed blackbirds took the whole scene in, feasting on the death and the chaos that rose from the field of battle like a fine red mist. Though it would gladly give up any ten of these birds to try to pluck out the eye of a troublesome mage if the opportunity rose, it was mostly content to soar above the battlefield and take everything in.

It had been too distracted by the screams of its enemies as men were yanked off the rampart to their doom to notice that the Kraken had finally come ashore. That should have been good news, but it would seem that it had been expected. The Lich refocused all of its resources on the main gate and the surrounding walls as soon as he saw that the Light’s Paragon was personally blunting its backdoor assault on the harbor. 

One day, I will rip his soul screaming from his body myself, Tenebroum thought in annoyance at all the time that man had managed to survive.

Neither it nor its general had any idea how the man had known the kraken would come or that it was the main thrust of their assault, but it no longer mattered. It seized the opportunity even before it saw that terrible, overwhelming light that lit up half the city, slamming against the city walls with all of its forces in defiance of it. One man could not hold back the tide of death that was coming. 

Until that point, it had been attacking sporadically, luring the defenders into clustering together at various points on the wall before attacking them with wraiths and death’s heads. Thanks to the mages on the walls, these weapons were only partially effective, but the Lich was not concerned. 

The light had been a wild card, and now that it was accounted for, it would drown the living in the bodies of the dead. And Krulm'venor was always the ideal choice when it came to having more bodies. 

The Lich finally let him off his chain and sent him baying forward on all fours as he split and split again, becoming dozens of himself before he reached the wall. That proved to be the second problem of the night. 

Even as they climbed one of the walls and moved toward a mage to rend him into tiny pieces, the man brandished some strange talisman. As he did so, the lights in the first few copies of his fiery godling went out as he fell from the wall, seemingly banished or slain without ever being struck. 

“What is this?” the darkness raged, moving closer for a better look, even if it cost it a bird. 

It turned out to be a piece of another copy of Krulmvenor. Specifically, it was a piece of the creature’s skull, where his name and the binding rituals that chained the fire spirit in place were. Such a fragment was almost certainly one of the many copies that died at Siddrimar. There was simply nowhere else it could come from. 

For a moment, Teneborum was outraged. “How dare a mortal use my own creations against me!” it raged. 

Still, instead of showing more anger, it forced its flaming goblin army to pull back instead. They were not happy and snarled collectively as they yanked against its mental leash. It had already lost 8 copies that may or may not be retrievable, though, and it was unwilling to risk more until it understood the threat. 

After all, the odds that any single mage would have such a thing were very low, so since he did, it was entirely possible they all had them. It had lost many shattered copies of its fire godling since this war had started, so the Lich was forced to admit that it was a possibility. 

“They might have countermeasures prepared for your shadow drake and titan, too,” its general chimed in. “We should not use tools they have seen before against a wary and cornered enemy.” 

Tenebroum was inclined to agree and sent the two of them away. It already had its own misgivings about using its titan because of some of the strange energies it had felt from beneath the city, but after this, the Lich was certain that the dangers for at least those servants outweighed the benefits and sent them away. 

Instead, it would rely on its conventional troops and other surprises. Thousands of dead marching as one was a form of magic all its own, anyway. Once all the defenders could do nothing but safeguard their wretched little lives, its most important weapon for this battle was unleashed: the siege ogre. 

Tenebroum had crafted several large monstrosities from ogres in the past. One had been lost at Siddrimar, one had been buried beneath the rubble at Banath, and two more had been detonated. 

This one was built from the remains of those and metal casts of some of the bones, where spares had not been available: the result was a lumbering monstrosity almost three times the height of a man and nearly twice as tall as a normal ogre. While it wasn’t quite tall enough to reach up and tear down the walls down, it was more than strong enough to rip the oaken gate that guarded the main entrance. 

The siege ogre moved slowly, shaking the ground with every step. None of the chirurgiens who had built it would be surprised by that fact, as it weighed several tons. A great deal of reinforcement was needed to unleash the strengths in all six of its man-sized arms, and three legs were needed to hold it up as it moved forward. 

It was implacable, though, and loomed out of the night like a hill more than a man. Eventually, the defenders noticed no matter how many arrows ricochet off the chainmail and armored plating that had been riveted to its tanned hide, the defenders could do no damage to it. 

Even lightning and hellfire called down by one of the mages before the man’s soul was ripped to shred by a swarm of wraiths he hadn’t been paying attention to was barely enough to stagger the thing instead. All the man succeeded in doing was making the monstrosity more visible as he wreathed the siege ogre in flames. 

The flicker green fire was just the preservative chemicals being ignited, though, and it hurt nothing more than the morale of the men who watched in horror as the flames lit up the monstrosity with that ghoulish lighting, making it even more terrible to look upon. Fire would never hurt such a well-built thing. It was more powerful than any force of nature that could be brought to bear against it because it was beyond nature. 

The Lich could feel the terror radiating off of the starving men on the walls, but after a few minutes, it was finally forced to smother the flames. That wasn’t because they were doing any real harm, though; it was because it was making it easier for the catapults to strike their target. They were doing some damage, at least, but only because their heavy stones were actually large enough to break bones. 

Even a broken arm and damaged rib cage still couldn’t stop it from reaching the gate, and once it was there, there wasn’t a force in this world that could stop it. The ogre began ripping the timbers off the gate, one at a time, and tossing the foot-thick boards aside like they were no more than firewood. 

Soon, that was all they would be, though, the Lich thought with an eagerness that bordered on glee. 

At one point, a man trying to be a hero leaped down from the guardhouse and tried to inflict some mortal would with a claymore that was being used more like a spear. The zombie ogre snatched him out of the air with its upper right arm and crushed him to paste without effort. It barely even broke the ceaseless, noisy rhythm of destruction it was engaged in as it ripped down the main gate. 

Minutes later, the timbers lay in ruin all around the siege ogre, and it advanced to the portcullis. There, the men of the guardhouse sought to light it on fire with boiling oil and flaming arrows. This did more damage than the magic had, but only because the pitch burned hotter for longer. 

Neither the burning oil nor the pike-wielding defenders that jammed their weapons over and over in a vain attempt to hit something vital were enough to stop it as it gripped the giant metal grating with three hands and began to pull. The metal popped and whined in its hands as the gate began to stretch and warp in its hands. Then, with a pained shriek, they finally gave way and were rent in two.

The battle that followed was a desperate one, but even so, the humans never had a chance, and for every step forward, the siege ogre skilled a dozen men. Whether they wielded a great sword or a halberd and had dark eyes or light, few could even scratch Tenebroum’s armor creation, and none could slay it. 

In the end, the defenders couldn’t even slow it down, and some mage weakened the stone in the guardhouse enough to drop a whole tower on the monster. Even that wasn’t enough to kill it, though. Buried up to its waist in the ruble. This was enough to stop it in its tracks, but even so, it continued to fight, and it killed anyone foolish enough to approach it. 

The Lich was not surprised. Its general had already predicted such an outcome, but it was only a delaying move. It reeked of desperation. They had bought themselves another night, perhaps, but tomorrow, on the night of the new moon, there would be nothing to stop the fresh hell that it would unleash.

The Lich would have continued its assault all night, but when it felt the Kraken finally cease moving and collapse into a rapidly purifying puddle on the docks, it ordered the Paragon to begin to withdraw. 

“As you will, my master,” it acknowledged as the flow of battle began to morph. 

Tenebroum knew full well that it would want to fight until nearly dawn, but at this point, the Lich felt that they had done all they could. If it wanted to end this, it was probably going to need to join the battle itself for only the third time in its entire existence. Despite its distaste, part of it relished the idea.