RP Battle for Brackenfort [Fantasy]

Gavel

Gavel

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Between the time when the Great Tempest of Duncan Stormcaller swallowed Castle Dread and the rise of the Sons of Heurist, there was an age of undreamt adventure and peril. Men, Dwarves, and Elves united in uneasy brotherhood to confront the Dark Powers of the Forbidden Five - Balanar, the Vampire God of Tyranny; Neferiac, the Mad God of Chaos; Morghul, the Dark God of Undeath; Arachnia, Elven Goddess of the Insatiable; and Azgaraz, Dwarven God of Greed.

"To war!" came the cry of untold thousands of crusaders, who armed themselves in a desperate stand against darkness. Evil was everywhere. Innumerable clashes between good and evil ravaged the countrysides of the Continent and plunged entire kingdoms into chaos. But this is not the story of that grand campaign. It is only an episode in a small theater, concerned solely with the safety of those who had retreated to a mountainous keep. The Brackenfort, meant to hold to the bitter end as the apocalypse swept the lands.

Many a tale came to an end there, and many began. At the base of Rage Mountain, a heavy mist had settled across the land, and Silas Gavel, a young Banisher of a proud line, kept an uneasy hand on his sword hilt, flexing his fingers in anticipation.

He and those with him were scouting the lands around the Fort, a preternaturally thick underbrush said to be inhabited by ghouls and bloodsuckers. The legions of the Dark Powers had gathered all foul creatures to their side, and they needed to be hunted down and destroyed. That was his job here.

Banishers, clerics and monster-killers, ever sported two weapons: a mace, for dispatching men, and a silvered blade, for monsters. He knew not which he would need today - only that he sensed danger in the dark, the crack of a branch in the underbrush, eyes watching in the forest. The dark blue cloak over his shoulders barely kept the chill off of him - it was cold out, too cold for humans. Bloodsuckers stalked him even now, trying to judge whether they could take a fully armed and armored Banisher. Little did they know he was but an apprentice - his ancestor Wayne Gavel was a peer of the famous Locke Heidelstam, who had been sainted in their order. But Silas had not been in a true battle yet.

He kept his worries to himself, and maintained a continual prayer, one which turned his hazel eyes a pale blue, and illuminated the path before him as though it were day to his eye. Torches were too dangerous.

In a moment, war would be upon him. He had to trust his companions and his God to help him see it through.
 
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Rainier was beginning to suspect the Banishers didn't like him very much.

It was something about the way they bristled when they caught sight of him, muttered whenever they thought he was out of earshot, spat upon the ground at the mention of his name. The whole situation hadn't done much to make him feel welcome at Brackenfort, but then again, the young storm-mage could hardly blame them. He had gotten a rather lot of them killed.

Rainier was no soldier- he could scarcely lift a sword, and casting from within a suit of plate armor was next to impossible for even the most talented magi, much less one of his inexperience. Yet he'd been pressed into service against the forces of the Dark Gods nonetheless. Such was the law of the land in these dark times. Any able-bodied man or woman who possessed even a spark of the Talent was to be conscripted, for their abilities were increasingly scarce, as the school of the Heurists grew in size and influence.

In the first weeks of his service, they had attempted to train Rainier in their ways, but he'd had no eye for their mathematical formulae or complex rituals. Being lowborn, he was barely learned in letters, much less the arcane calculations the Heurists employed. His facility with the Art was a natural talent, the sort that couldn't be taught or measured. So the Banishers had resigned themselves to treating him like an unreliable cannon, which could only fire half the time you lit the fuse.

In theory, possessing a single soldier capable of manipulating the weather would have been an incredible advantage for any military force, but soldiers and tacticians rely on predictability, and Rainier's talent was anything but. That was why he'd been reassigned to Brackenfort, far from the front, where the damage he could do was more limited. Because the last time he'd been deployed to the front lines, he'd accidentally summoned a miniature monsoon at precisely the wrong moment, soaking the bowstrings of the Banishers' archers, and leaving them unable to fire upon a horde of charging orcs.

It had been a minor miracle that Rainier survived the slaughter that followed, and though the Banishers couldn't afford to drum out even a single mage, they'd clearly decided he was worse than useless after that disaster- a liability. So here he was, a pariah among the Banishers, forbidden from employing his Art without explicit permission from his commanding officer. The men had taken to keeping their bowstrings safe and dry under their own helms, lest the inexperienced storm-caller summon a downpour without intending to. And though they could hardly afford to forgo their armor, he was certain he saw them flinch every time an errant spark danced between his fingertips, afraid he'd unleash a bolt of lightning that would flash-fry them.

When he'd first been recruited- or conscripted, to be more precise -Rainier had been terrified of battle. And he was no less terrified this day. But his fear was not as strong as his desire to prove his worth to the stern-faced Rector Ivernes, and demonstrate that his Talent was a gift, not a curse.
 
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"Steady, mage," Silas whispered. "Vampyr can smell fear."

The fledgling Banisher regarded the hapless tempestus with a mix of scrutiny and sympathy. He'd been part of a recent conscription effort that Silas had heard of - one which made him nervous. Pressing scores of unwilling arcanists into service to march against legions of grayskins seemed like a recipe for a magic mutiny. But unlike some of the others in the Order, he had something of a more open mind when it came to those who had a gift for the arcane. They seized magic from the air itself, rather than calling on the Divine - an act some dubbed heretical. Silas just saw it as a different approach to the same problem.

As such, he'd adopted Rainier as a friend, insofar as his position allowed - Banishers were sometimes feared and sometimes respected, so his efficacy varied somewhat in social situations. In the past, their words were as weighty as a ten-ton stone, and commands were followed without hesitation. Now? Not so much.

Silas himself had a firm voice but a slight build, and his relative youth meant locals didn't always take his warnings seriously. Particularly when it pertained to ghouls and goblins. Far from the front lines, people believed little and less when it came to rumors. He had to work on being more convincing.

Damnation.

Robert Gavel, another ancestor of his, had massive shoulders and arms thick as tree trunks! They said that he had to stoop to enter doorways. In contrast, Silas stood around a half-head shorter than most men his age. He'd grown as tall as he'd ever be. He still towered over the average halfling, but that was little consolation.

On the other hand, being short was useful for getting out of the way of danger. That'd grown more and more common. What was strength against an ogre, after all?
 
It was some small irony that, for all his natural talents in the Art, Rainier was unable to master even the simplest of cantrips that the Banishers made frequent use of, including that which Silas was employing to see clearly in the darkness of the wooded foothills surrounding Brackenfort. As such, he was forced to follow close behind the Banisher, relying on the sound of his footsteps so as not to lose his way. He might've lit the way with a spell of his own, but lightning was not so easily tamed as flame, and there was no guarantee that once summoned, it wouldn't leap from his hands and strike down a tree, electrocute a passing badger, or even conduct its way through Silas's sword and stop his heart.

Considering that Silas was one of the few Banishers who seemed to more than simply tolerate Rainier's presence at the fort, the mage very much wanted to avoid killing him. Of course, circumstances being what they were, the dangers that lurked in these woods were far more likely to kill the both of them, before his gift had the chance.

The mere mention of vampyr sent a shiver down Rainier's spine, one he swiftly sought to suppress once he remembered the rest of what Silas had said. He wasn't certain whether the Banisher had literally meant the bloodsuckers could detect the scent of terror, or whether it had been a more general metaphor for the fact that they preyed on human weakness. Either way, the thought of the pallid, lifeless fiends made Rainier uneasy. Not least because he was somewhat uncertain how effective his abilities would be against them. The undead had no hearts to stop, and according to the Heurists who'd attempted to train Rainier, that was how electricity tended to kill. The precise mechanics of how a bolt of lightning stopped a man's heart, he hardly understood, but if it was true, it boded poorly for his odds against a pack of vampyr.

A scent- faint, yet distinct -cut through Rainier's internal musings, and he stopped in his tracks.

"Hold. Do you smell that? Something is... rotting."
 
"Aye!" Silas answered loudly, for an alarm had to be raised, and no stealth could save them now. He drew his silver sword.

The reek was upon them all at once. A cascade of limbs and ragged, bloodless faces surged out of the wood. Undead, some running on all fours, limbs crooked. Others had the build of athletes, unbroken in their demise, and sprinted for the living with preternatural haste. They bore armor and weapons. Others still had decayed down to little more than skeletons. Yet still they marched, animated with hate - Morghul's touch was at work here.

The callow cleric raised his shield on instinct, and not a second too late. A flail came down on it hard, arcing through the air with a menacing hiss. The spikes on the flail embedded in his round shield with a crack, threatening to yank it away from him; he prayed for the straps to hold. He felt the impact up along his whole arm. Another flash of white flesh drove a dagger down along his back. The rings of mail held.

The Banisher's sword lashed out, a silver streak through the moonlit night. It bit down through the neck of the first attacker, bashing the animated bones to the ground. The shield felt heavy on his arm, but he twisted as best he could and brought the blade up through the flesh-eater. He locked eyes with the malevolent corpse and saw a dark god behind its eyes, laughing.

In pain, Silas cried out a word of power, and the air hummed. A golden light grew within the dead man's skull and burst it asunder.

His throat burned and his teeth felt like they were going to vibrate out of his mouth.

"Form a line!" he shouted, whirling, the horde upon them all.
 
"Hells. Hells. Hells."

Rainier was no longer concerned with suppressing his fears, for the enemy was upon them, and terror was a natural reaction to being faced with a horde of shambling corpses. Yet Silas's commanding words rang out, louder than the eerie moans of their unliving foes, and the storm-caller complied instinctively.

Unlike Silas, however, Rainier was neither armored, nor properly armed. He couldn't afford to wear mail, for fear that channeling lightning through his body would be conducted across the armor instead of towards his foes- and the quartermaster at the Brackenfort had seen fit to equip him only with a tarnished steel dagger, on the basis that he possessed a greater natural weapon than any of their ordinary soldiers, who needed the weapons more.

Privately, Rainier suspected that they'd chosen to provide him only with leathers and a dagger so that when he met his demise, no equipment of great value would be lost.

Doing his best to maintain the line as Silas had commanded- a difficult proposition, given the small size of their squad -the tempestus unsheathed his blade. Unbidden, a current of electricity ran through his hand and up the blade, yet rather than draw upon the power welling within him, he bit it back. Calling the storm in such close proximity to Silas would surely have disastrous consequences for the man in the mail. His silver sword was practically a lightning rod. For the time being, the mage would have to make do with weapons and wits alone.

Fortunately, the first of the undead to strike at Rainier was withered and decayed so greatly as to pose little threat. Its feeble strike was easily rebuffed with an elbow, and though Rainier possessed little in the way of martial strength, he was sure he felt one of the corpse's brittle bones crack. Emboldened, he took the opportunity to drive his blade into the creature's chest. Piercing what remained of its heart seemed sufficient to put the dead thing down, and the arcane apprentice yanked his blade out swiftly as it toppled.

"Hah! It'll take more than that to--"

The moment of triumph was short-lived. Another corpse, wielding what appeared to be an axe whose head had rusted away and become a makeshift club, struck Rainier in the back of the head, sending him reeling. The others were on him in seconds, bony hands grasping, attempting to rend his flesh. They struggled to pierce his leather armor, but their numbers were too great- it would be over in seconds.

"Gavel! Help me!"
 
Fear was natural in any fight. It was doubled, no, tripled against the dead. Most men would void their bowels at the sight. At the smell. Silas was a young man, and green, but he was castle-trained, descended from a noble line. The Gavels were highborn and Banishers, often enough. They'd been landed ages ago.

A second son, Silas had joined the order, rather than train to be the head of the household. That was his brother, Marcus. He thought of Marcus now - of sparring with him in the training yard.

That practice had allowed him to move automatically - to not piss himself in fear of the unliving - and to bring his blade to bear on the ghouls descending toward them. He shouted and cursed mindlessly, swinging the weapon to and fro, stepping ever backward as the tide rolled in. A countless horde, an entanglement of limbs and gnashing teeth, rotted gums, and bloodcurdling cries - he heard his name spoken aloud and turned to see Rainier nearly subsumed.

Swear poured down his brow. He needed to focus. He needed to say the words, the right words.

"FIE! GET THEE HENCE!" he bellowed, holding the sword skyward, as he'd been taught. "BEGONE!"

The Honored One - his Divine - did not speak as other Gods did. He had no avatar, and worked few miracles. And his Banishers had but a fraction of his powers, wrapped up in mystery. They did not dare say his name aloud but in the most dire situations. It was something done unconsciously, when history demanded. Locke Heidelstam, the greatest High Commander of all time, could call on the power at will. He'd been sainted for it, so strong was his connection to the Divine. Silas coud only channel a fraction of that power, and only with rigorous practice.

His blade blazed with light, and the tide relented wherever he pointed its tip, crying out in unholy fury.

Silas' lungs were aflame, and his eyes watered, burning gold in their sockets. It was no miracle. It was but a rebuke, the likes of which any squire was expected to be able to perform before earning their silvered sword.

The ghouls fled, leaving the bodies of many of the scouting group in their wake.

"We must away," he gasped, throat dry and hoarse. "They'll soon be back. And in greater numbers."
 
Gavel's words echoed, though they were in the open air, reverberating in Rainier's ears. It was as though another voice had spoken through him, one with far greater weight than a man. The risen recoiled in fear of his holy aura, releasing Rainier, and he dropped to the ground, shuddering. He'd never gotten quite so... personal with the undead before.

The novice storm-caller attempted to take a breath, but found the attempt more difficult than anticipated. Panic barely beginning to recede, he reached to his throat- and found a hand already there. One of the unliving had wrapped its bony fingers around his windpipe, and in its haste to flee, the appendage had evidently snapped off.

Frantic, Rainier clawed at the hand, trying with all his might to pry it off his throat, but his attempts at first succeeded only at peeling flaky scraps of rotting flesh off of the brittle bones. When reanimated, it had been able to act as an ordinary part of the body, but once severed, rigor mortis had evidently returned, leaving the digits inflexible. Rather than peeling the fingers away, the tempestus was forced to snap them off one by one, discarding them into the dark before casting away what remained of the hand.

Breath came back to him in heaving gasps, sucking down greedy lungfuls of air- before a foul, foreign taste invaded his mouth. In his haste, he'd accidentally inhaled a bit of zombie-skin.

Rainier retched, the contents of all the day's meals, and most of yesterday's to boot, painting the ground. It was by some small miracle that he managed not to soil his own clothes by the time he was finished.

What a mess he must have looked to Gavel, unable to hold his own against such paltry foes, unable to hold down the contents of his own stomach. Without even the pretense of dignity, Rainier forced himself to his feet, steadied against a tree, as his own knees were too weak to support him fully at first.

"Yes. Yes, back to the fort. We'll have to warn the Rector."

That prospect, Rainier found, was more frightening than facing that entire horde of ghouls alone.

⎊-⎊-⎊

Their journey back to Brackenfort passed mostly in silence, though Rainier didn't miss the opportunity to thank Silas for saving his life. One day, he swore to himself, he'd repay that favor- just as soon as he was sure enough in his abilities as to avoid accidentally killing his friend in the process.

The scouting party- or what remained of it, after the ambush -entered the Brackenfort by torchlight, the Banishers at the gate waving them through after a cursory inspection, using spells of revealing to be certain their forms hadn't been adopted by shape-stealers while they were away. Many of the group were in need of medical attention, and saw their way to the fort's physicians, leaving only Silas, Rainier, and a small handful of others to make their report to Rector Ivernes.

Being some parts milita and some parts church, the Banishers' ranks did not always follow the traditional nomenclature of modern armies. Consequently, Rector Ivernes was not only responsible for the command of Brackenfort, but for the spiritual well-being of the men who manned it. His sermons were reserved only for the faithful, as the Banishers were secretive about the Divine they worshipped, but from what Rainier had been able to ascertain, he was just as blunt when preaching as when giving orders.

An older man, with grey in his temples, the Rector had near as many scars on his face as frown lines. Once, Rainier had heard two Banishers joking that it must have taken an act of divine intervention to get such a man to accept a posting so far from the front lines as this. Of course, they'd stopped laughing once they realized Rainier was listening in.

As soon as they were let into the Rector's office- a room with minimal furnishings, where he sat in a stone-hewn chair behind an old mahogany wood desk -Rainier took a knee, both out of deference, and to avoid meeting the old man's eyes. If the other Banishers regarded him with barely-disguised contempt, the Rector didn't bother disguising it at all.

"You have something to report," Ivernes said without inflection, phrased not as a question, but a statement. "So. Report."
 
Every Banisher chapter was different. Different philosophies emerged. There were some sects which refused armor and weapons, preferring instead the censer and mere robes. They looked down on the material, militaristic approach. They were also against collecting pay - a major schism in the order. Locke Heidelstam had revolutionized their code, and his reformations provided that a Banisher must always collect pay for their efforts in a reasonable amount. Gold for steel, for food. Never more than what a person could pay. That had become a universal way of doing things - the High Commander's word was law, and Locke had become a saint.

Now he was a star in the sky. Records from around the known world had confirmed the star's appearance, which would have been around the end of his life. Nearly all sects, Silas thought, agreed that Heidelstam had ascended beyond death. Nearly all.

Far from home, Silas could not be sure of this group's beliefs. He had not attended Ivernes' sermons. Preaching was not their way. Silas had been taught that his connection to the Honored One was something personal, unspoken. The Order was often thought suspicious because of their lack of idols - their distance from any pantheon, and their unwillingness to speak their God's name. The use of the term rector, he'd been told, was not Ivernes' invention, but regional.

Journeying back to the Brackenfort with their tails between their legs, as it were, Silas grunted as he shifted his mail. He'd suffered a fracture of some kind, when he'd caught the flail with his shield. He knew not the extent of the injury - only that it would be allayed with a night's rest. An old magic guarded him. If an injury were non-fatal, and he were in a place of safety, he'd awaken with little trace of the wound. One of the Divine's blessings.

Silas looked the Rector in the eyes as he spoke. He was exhausted, but not intimidated. Castle-forged, he kept his back straight, voice clear. He didn't join his friend in bowing. Instead, he nodded curtly.

"A horde of dead men, my lord. They killed most of our group before they could be repelled."

Silas felt as much a stranger in the Brackenfort as the stormcaller. He did not yet have a feel for now they liked to do things here. He was from the middle of the Continent near the coastline, not a border area, and his accent was distinct. He was mindful of his upper-class origins, the tendency to enunciate words clearly - probably intended for command in the future, if he could earn it. He would, once this crisis had abated.

"Rainier here fought bravely," he added, as an afterthought.
 
Ivernes gave a grunt of acknowledgement at Gavel's commendation of the storm-mage. He was not an unfair man, nor prone to prejudice- but Rainier would have a long way to go before he earned the rector's respect. And, of course, there were more important things weighing on the commander's mind at the moment.

"The risen. This close to our walls, but alone? Unsupported? Hurm."

Standing from his stone chair, the rector began to pace back and forth behind his desk, brow furrowed. His suspicion was not unfounded- as a military force, the undead were not particularly effective by themselves. As Silas himself had proven, they were easily repelled by Banishers, and unless under the direct command of a necromancer, their combat tactics tended to leave something to be desired.

"Perhaps an advance force- or they slipped a ghoul-caller's leash and made their way towards the nearest source of living flesh. In either case, the Dark Powers draw closer by the moment, and we are woefully unprepared."

The rector paused by the narrow slit of a window that provided illumination to his office in the daytime hours, and peered up at the sliver of the visible moon in the night sky, gauging the time.

"Six hours to sunup. They'll attack tonight," he concluded, shadows darkening his weathered face. "Planning to take us by surprise, no doubt. And if you hadn't survived to bring warning, they very likely would have. You've done well, young Gavel."

Praise from the rector was rare, and in this case, reserved for Silas alone. Head still bowed, Rainier shot his friend a glance, but swiftly returned his gaze to the floor.

"We can't afford to dig in for a siege- our stores are nearly bare as it is. We'll repel them this night, or the Brackenfort will fall. See to your wounds, Gavel, for you'll be facing the dead again before the sun rises, and worse things besides."

He paused, and turned his attention to Rainier.

"You, boy- on your feet, now -consider my injunction against the use of your gifts lifted. We'll be requiring them posthaste."

The rector placed a hand on Rainier's shoulder, making the young mage flinch.

"Summon a storm for the ages, boy. Summon the thunder, and summon the lightning. Hold nothing back, for if you fail, it'll be all of our heads."
 
Can the Brackenfort withstand an attack at all? he thought, brow furrowing. Ivernes was right that a necromancer was likely to blame for this. The nexus of control in the undead legions, dark priests who called up warriors from the essential saltes of the long-dead. With them gone, the dead would weaken, scatter - or so it had been observed in the past. All of the old ways were either forgotten or obsolete by now. With the Brackenfort in the condition it was in, and only a mercenary militia to guard it, they were looking at long odds on defense. No food. Weak warriors. They could hold out against the living, but the dead did not tire. And they did not fear.

The key was slaying the priest. A priest who would be far from the front lines of the siege.

Better a ranging...but who was he to propose such, and in the condition he was in? He'd be sending men to their doom. No - it was a slow death here, behind the walls of the Brackenfort, or a quick death afield, if they were lucky not to be captured. But only one bore greater odds of victory in young Gavel's mind.

Wait. Stop and think.

The dead had no artillery, no cannon. They did not build siege engines, so far as he knew, unless instructed. And even that took time. There were advantages to meeting them defensively. On the other hand, they did not starve, and disease posed them no threat. Hit-and-run tactics, favored in asymmetric warfare, had little effect either, as they often targeted supply lines. The ghoul army soon to be at their gates could just stall - wait them out, if the initial push were thwarted, and every man within the fort would starve. The Honored One brought many blessings, but endless food and drink was not one of them.

What he would give for a dead army of his own, that they did not tire, nor complain, nor know fear.

Silas frowned.

"We ought to send riders North, to call for aid," he thought aloud, expecting Ivernes had already come to the same conclusion - but just in case he hadn't, better safe than sorry. "Only our fastest, my lord," he added, including the deferential title, which had gone unspoken at first. If the old man hated him for arrogance, he could punish him for it if they both lived. Specifying our fastest also meant that Silas wouldn't be among them. He had little aptitude in the way of horsemanship.

If Ivernes hadn't disliked the outsider nobleborn before, he surely would now. Silas decided he didn't care. There were bigger things at stake now than pride.
 
"Riders... we can't spare a full detachment without leaving the fort undefended. But one man, and one horse, wouldn't be badly missed. It'd take a miracle for them to reach the nearest outpost in time, and another miracle for reinforcements to arrive before we're overrun. Still, best to have hope for a miracle than no hope at all."

If Gavel's suggestion had irritated or offended the rector, it didn't show on his weathered features. He simply gave the pair a curt nod, and gestured for them to leave his office and prepare for the imminent assault on the Brackenfort.

"Dismissed."

⎊-⎊-⎊

As the pair exited Ivernes' office, Rainier found himself tugging at his collar, sweat beginning to collect beneath the leathers, despite the cool breeze in the air. As soon as he was certain they were out of earshot of the rector's office, he began speaking in low, agitated tones, a slight hitch in his voice from his unsteady breathing.

"Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. For months he's had me practically under lock and key, forbidden from summoning so much as a light shower, and now he wants the mother of all storms? Look outside, Gavel- there's hardly a damned cloud in the sky! We'll be lucky if I can call up a drizzle, much less--"

Rainier broke off abruptly, the words catching in his throat. He stopped, bracing himself against one of the Brackenfort's sturdy stone walls. It felt as though the dead man's hand was still at his neck, slowly constricting his access to air.

"Gavel, I-- I don't know if I can do this," the storm-caller whispered, his knees weak. In the back of his mind, he could hear the sound of the dead men advancing on the fort, their shuffling gait, the eerie moans and clacking teeth. Coming closer and closer with every moment.
 
"Steady, cutter," he muttered, lost in thoughts of his own. Rainier was struggling, but Gavel was elsewhere, locked in deep contemplation. Truth was, he felt as much the same as the stormcaller, but they were dealing with it in different ways. As his friend muttered on about their predicament, the Banisher ran his leather gloves across his temples. He'd be no good with a shield until his arm was better; even now it throbbed. The best he could do was spare some focus to suppress the pain. Aye, they had healing magic, but it was best saved for emergencies. To invoke the power of the Divine to alleviate mere discomfort - even a dislocated shoulder - was needy at best, and hubris at worst. He could find a medic to pop it back into its socket...

He glanced back at the mage, snapping back to the here and now.

Looks like he needs a walking stick.

Then he frowned.

"Think you'd do better with a stick of some kind, Rainier?" he inquired, not unseriously. "I've heard tales of that. They say Duncan Stormcaller had a great oak staff."

He probably sounded ridiculous, but it was something to say, and the ache in his arm was killing him.
 
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