Well, a grown woman popping out of a brain tumor after surgery is difficult to believe, but I’m not an expert on gods, Ruiden replied, and then, somehow sounding rather morose, he added, I’m no longer much of an expert on demons either. I thought I knew what they were, and now I don’t.
Talarius shook his head. I don’t care about that ridiculous story. Hephaestus admitted that you can’t necessarily take a god’s origin story at face value. No, what I can’t accept is that Tiernon and our Church has always taught us that demons are demonstrably evil. And now I find out that a demon — the demon I tried to permanently kill — is not only a recycled demon prince, but if I believe that mirroring and Hephaestus, is the stepbrother of my god?
Well, I for one was relieved to find out Tom is actually a god. Makes me feel like less of a failure as a demon-slaying sword, Ruiden said. Talarius wasn’t sure if it was serious or joking. It expressed very little emotion as a golem when speaking, and its thoughts were only marginally more expressive.
I mean, I can maybe accept that demons and D’Orcs, and even saints are mortals who are converted by magic into immortals, Talarius said.I don’t like it, but I have enough evidence, and a lot of corroborating independent testimony, that I cannot really deny it. But the fact that Orcus, the villain of Church legend, slain by Sentir Fallon, is the stepbrother of my god?
So when you say your mind is not still enough, do you really mean that you simply do not want to pray to Tiernon and ask him if he had his stepbrother murdered? Ruiden asked.
Talarius put his face in his hands, groaning. Something like that. It’s simply too insane to believe. But so much of all of this is too much to believe! Where do I draw the line? Are there even lines anymore?
Ruiden was silent.
Talarius shook his head and got to his feet. I really hope we are going to the Citadel to battle the Storm Lords, he said. At least I know that the Citadel will bring me no more questions; that we will simply fight against the darkness. Good versus evil. Things will be much simpler there and in the glory of combat, I will not have to think.
He sighed. “Tiernon! I really need to stop thinking,” the knight said out loud. “No more questions; no more confusing and contradictory information that I can’t deal with!”
Teragdor was once more on the battlements after a short rest. Unfortunately, slaying the lich and its dragon had only seemed to antagonize the enemy. The Sky Wardens were now fully engaged in trying to stop incursions over the wall. Several zombie dragons had already tried to deliver wagons of zombies to the tops of the walls. The Sky Wardens could beat them back, but in many cases they were able to unload their zombie passengers.
That meant the soldiers on top of the wall were now fully in battle and the battle priests engaged. Teragdor had never heard of battle priests until he’d met Karis, but they did seem to be a good idea. They were priest combatants who waded into battle and fought the Unlife directly, giving regular soldiers an edge in combat both with protection rituals and blessings as well as quick healing.
That was essentially what he and Rasmeth were doing at the moment. With more troops now engaged, they did not have the mana to spare to do major attacks. Interestingly, as with the battle priests, the emblem on his shield was actually a consecrated symbol of Tiernon that he could use as a normal Holy Symbol, thus giving him a free hand for his mace.
He had cast the Apostolic Ritual of Unlife Aversion upon himself. This provided him and those around him with a region in which Unlife were not only hindered but actively and painfully repelled. He was trying to use it in such a way as to push the zombies off the top of the wall. Preferably the outside wall, but there were people on the ground on the inside prepared to deal with any zombie mush that might try to crawl or ooze away from the impact site.
CRUNCH went his mace in a zombie’s skull. The mace’s pleasant glow would be quite useful once Atun had set. He pulled the mace, dripping with brains, out of the skull. The weapon had the option to raise spikes out of the main ball, similar to a morning star, but without the chain. However, in the case of zombie skulls, a simple round ball mace was more effective, as it was not as easily stuck in broken skull bone crevices.
“Aigh!” wailed a soldier about two feet from him. Somehow a zombie — no, that was a ghoul — had gotten between the segments at the wrist joint of her armor and was gnawing on the woman’s wrist.
“Off with you!” Teragdor yelled, quickly crushing the ghoul’s skull. That would prevent it from being turned to a wight. “Let me see your wrist!” he ordered the soldier, moving to try and surround her with his shield. He allowed his mace to fall on its strap as he reached for the woman’s hand.
Teragdor quickly recited the ritual for curing ghoulism and then followed up with a healing ritual.
The woman looked up gratefully. “Thank you, apostle!”
“Keep up the good work!” Teragdor said with a nod as he pulled back, turning around and flipping his mace back up into his hand.
CRACK went his mace, glancing off a ghoul’s head this time. He shoved with his shield and the ghoul went tumbling over the wall to the inside court. Teragdor winced slightly. He had no problem with making zombie mush, but ghoulash was different. Ghouls were infected, diseased mortals; aside from their horrible hunger, they were actually intelligent people. Falling to one’s death like that was not a particularly honorable way to die. Not how he would normally want to defeat, or kill, his opponent.
He suspected however, that such a sentiment came from his mother’s side. He doubted too many orcs had such moral qualms. Of course, that could be the ingrained racism of the Church in Astlan. Orcs were not held in that high regard in the Astlanian Church of Tiernon, unlike here. Having been raised among humans, he had internalized many of those prejudices. Only here in Nysegard could he stand side by side with half-orcs, humans and orcs and see them all as individuals and not preconceived caricatures.
CRUNCH went his mace into another zombie skull. Zombies, on the other hand, were pretty much exactly what he’d always thought they’d be like. Only the putrid smell had he not counted on. No one had ever told him how truly horrible rotting zombie organs and flesh smelled.
“The seventeenth regiment, under Flora, shall be responsible our ground and tunnel defense here at Doom,” Arg-nargoloth noted, gesturing on the map table to the ground entrances to Doom. “Tar Roth Non is reporting that all the hydra hounds that survived Lord Tommus here are fully regenerated and ready to eat anyone entering the tunnels.”
“Sorry about that,” Tom said. He really did feel guilty for the havoc his party had wreaked upon the hydra hounds, who had just been doing their jobs.
Arg-nargoloth chuckled, shaking his head. “Don’t be; I am exaggerating. All of the hounds actually survived. This is the Abyss, after all. The ones you brained so they could not sprout new heads are just taking longer to regenerate. They should be ready for combat in a few more weeks. Anyway, we still have over a thousand hounds ready for combat.”
“The tenth is ready for Doom air support,” Zog Darthelm reported. “We have gotten three new gravity canons online and the plasma infantry are now at their defensive stations.”
Tom shook his head. “I wish we could use those plasma rifles in Nysegard. I suspect they would work quite well on Unlife.”