“General!” from ahead, atop a dune of sand, one of the remaining scouts called back. “We got company ahead! Looks like…” They trailed off, into a sudden grim silence before swearing under their breath. “Unmade Carnival, and more of ours!”
This immediately drew Altanis’s full attention, and she was quick to rush forward, cresting the hill herself. She peered out over the sands, squinting slightly against the shifting winds and shimmering haze hanging over everything...but she saw it. It was hard to miss, really. A scene of pure carnage and chaos even from this far out.
More and more of the troops remaining under her command began to come similarly storming up the dune, and around it to lay eyes on the scene for themselves. The simple mention of the Unmade had immediately re-ignited the flagging fire within them. Their enemy; the ones they were here to fight against. No petty squabbles about alliances or territory or pride, but their actual
enemy.
“Finally, it is time…” Altanis grinned, a viciously cold expression. “We’ve been unfortunate enough to only have but one minor skirmish thus far. More of a wanton slaughter and extermination mission than any actual fighting.” She reached behind her back with one hand, taking hold of something. “Finally, that changes…” She withdrew it out, revealing the form of a short metallic staff, quickly unfurling and telescoping outward in her grasp and taking the form of a long, gleaming spear.
She turned about to look over her troops. Far less than they had set out from the castle, many many days ago. Reduced by more than a third from the time she had taken command, after fleeing the ruined Unmade city. Not exactly what could be called a truly large number of soldiers. However…
They didn’t need numbers truly on their side. They could employ other means, especially given their chance at relative surprise, and at this distance.
“Hell Divers!” Her voice rang out, clear and stern, as she swept her drawn weapon in a singing arc before her, well over head height of the nearby troops. Immediately silence fell upon her forces, and all eyes turned almost in unison toward her. “Prepare for battle. We advance forward methodically. Do not charge until we are close enough...they cannot anticipate us.”
There was a single, wordless roar of seven hundred and more voices in response. Despite their opinions of her directly, despite their opinions of the state of things, despite their opinions of this entire event...they were, all of them, here to fight. And now a fight was on their doorstep.
They were ready.
* * *
They drew nearer to the scene of the fighting, as quietly and stealthily as a force of their size could manage to. Along the way, careful orders were given.
The remaining snipers in her unit broke off, scattering into two separate groups and taking up positions atop sand dunes, and in the shadows of whatever rocks and cliffs and clusters of sparse desert plants there were. Clear line of sight for them to fire upon the Unmade forces, and plenty of cover to break enemy sight when they were eventually spotted, and retreat to another location among the sands.
The support and infantry units were split into similar groups — some of them hanging back in key positions to ambush any enemies that had the bright idea to break off and come after the relatively vulnerable snipers.
The remainder stayed with Altanis and advanced forward, creating another rocky dune in the sand. Altanis gave another sweep of the spear in her hand, and the main blade erupted in a crackling torrent of energy, red spikes and teeth of energy roaring and blazing to life as they spun and screeched like a hungry beast. Twin lances of bright, red-orange flame leapt out of either side, forming into shimmering spikes of deadly intent.
“Hell Divers…” A swift gesture spun the weapon, now a futuristic marvel of a hellish looking trident, and she thrust it forward. “...Rip and Tear!” she barked, and the remaining soldiers with her gave only a grunt of acknowledgement before breaking forward, charging into the fray. They were silent in their charge, not even drawing their weapons until they were halfway to their enemies, when they suddenly brought them to life.
A screaming cacophony of ringing steel, the hum and roar of plasma weaponry, the crackle of energy-sheathed blades and hammers, and the distinctive and awe-inspiring sound of shotguns and rifles being readied to breathe out death as surely as any lead dragon.
Only a small handful, of maybe thirty soldiers, remained behind with Altanis to serve as a personal guard, in the event the enemy got too close. They were the best the unit had to offer, for whatever it was worth without being truly tested in combat yet. That suited the General just fine, however. It gave her time to observe the fray in more detail.
And observe she did. Taking a large sweeping look over the battle below and before her. The relative number of forces on either side. The locations of the major officers and leaders. The strong and weak points. The mounting casualties. The way the berserk, furious charge of her own forces accompanied by a hail of unexpected sniper fire tore into and completely demolished the rear-most ranks of the enemy forces. A practiced eye let her take all this and more in within a matter of moments, and the calculations and gears
Nothing had truly been changed; the soldiers she had under her command simply weren’t enough to turn the tide truly through direct application of force and strength of arms. No...she needed something more. She needed more strength, more firepower, more manpower. She needed more…
A wicked grin slowly spread over her face, her eyes narrowing to devilish slits. Her suddenly bared teeth gleamed sharply in the morning light creeping over the desert, and she couldn’t help but slowly lick her lips as the idea formed in her head.
She needed more
bodies.
And if there was one thing a battlefield had in very ample supply...it was bodies.
“I know that look…” One of the nearby soldiers whispered, his eyes flicking quickly from Altanis to the battle ahead. “The General has a big idea.”
“This oughta be good…” another one murmured, adjusting her grip on the rifle in her hands. “Show us what ya got, boss-lady.”
“It is time…” Altanis took three paces forward and lifted her free hand. A dull pulse of force radiated out and off of her, throwing the nearby sands up into a swirling cloud. Her personal guard flinched and staggered, nearly thrown flat on their asses. A ripple rolled through the ground, spreading and branching out as it went.
The sand began to rise up in wispy, uneven patches. Swirling in thick, obscuring clouds and casting everything among the fighting forces from nearly mid-thigh and below into a blurred, hazy mess.
The bodies of the dead and fallen, both Hell Diver and Unmade alike, began to slowly twitch and squirm. Like the last vestiges of life seizing and forcing some last spasming of muscles, they convulsed and writhed in a grotesque fashion.
Then slowly...they began to move.
A fallen Hell Diver soldier, little more left of him than his upper body and one arm, jerked and lurched, his remaining limb lashing out and seizing hold of a nearby Carnival soldier. The vice-tight grip was far stronger than in life, and enough to bring the clown toppling down to the ground. The corpse’s face twitched and slid into a slurred, half-paralyzed grin like some kind of horrid rictus as the fallen clown was hacked and blasted to pieces.
“Behold, Hell Divers!” Altanis cackled to those few nearby her. A shimmering haze, like a heat mirage, rolled off of her; dense clouds of wispy black and red smoke and fog poured out of her entire body, as the fingers of her raised and outstretched hand slowly twitched and flicked about, like pulling and manipulating the strings of a puppet.
All among the mess, where the shrouding sands had sprung up, the dead began to stir. They began to rise, jerkily and unevenly as if simply being pulled and tugged about rather than truly moving on their own.
“...the dead men,” Altanis growled, her eyes shining a brilliant, gleaming gold as she exercised every ounce of power she could. Within the sand, the fallen lurched upright, staggering and drunkenly stumbling as they clutched weapons in loosely swinging arms. Heads lolled back and legs skewed at crazy angles; missing limbs and shredded bodies that had long since stopped actually bleeding staggered about. “...are marching again!”
And all at once, the re-animated soldiers threw themselves into the mix. They were uncoordinated, no precision or grace to them. Controlling so many beyond simple motions was impossible even for Altanis, and she knew she couldn’t manage it for very long.
All of them had their mouths began to work. Flapping and gaping like fish out of water, they could produce only gurling, wordless and senseless noises mostly from their simply forced movements forcing air in and out of their ravaged lungs.
But the effect it had was immediate. The dead suddenly lurching up, apparently back to life, and throwing themselves at the Unmade soldiers with everything they had — weapons, bare hands, and even bodily — broke their fighting ranks and units apart. It unbalanced them, and kept them constantly pressed and harried. The fact of it being corpses was of no issue to them. But anyone with a brain cell would take issue with something so large hurling itself at you.
Her personal guard simply stared in something between disgust, sudden nausea and wild-eyed awe. “Holy...shit…” One of them, looking white as a sheet, breathlessly whispered as he staggered back.
Altanis has used one application of Focus to seize control of several corpses, both Unmade and Hell Diver, from the battlefield and telekinetically puppeteer them to attack and distract the remaining, living Unmade forces.
).
