Chapter 38: The True Target
The silence that followed Varg's threat was heavier than any before. The Reanimates, which had been still as statues, now stirred. Their empty eye sockets, which had been fixed on Alistair, slowly turned. In a single, horrifyingly coordinated movement, every last one of them shifted their gaze past him, past the duel, and onto the wooden walls of Vance Haven.
A cold dread, colder than the corrupting fog, washed over Alistair. He had been wrong. So completely wrong.
The duel, the challenge, his own desperate struggle—it had all been a distraction. A way to occupy him, to pull him out from behind his defenses and focus all his attention on the immediate, personal threat. Varg hadn't just wanted to kill the Earth-Shaker. He wanted to make him watch.
"You... you never wanted to fight me," Alistair breathed, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. "Not really."
Varg's newly formed claw of green energy flexed, the air sizzling around it. A ghastly approximation of a smile stretched his corrupted features. "Fight you? You are a gnat. An irritation. You stand on the land I will claim, with the people I will break. Killing you quickly would have been a mercy. This... this is a lesson."
He raised his glowing claw high. "The lesson is that your power is worthless. It cannot protect them."
With a final, contemptuous look at Alistair, Varg turned his back and began walking toward the tree line, the fog swirling thickly around him. He was leaving. His work here was done.
The Reanimate army, now utterly ignoring the stunned Alistair, let out a silent, collective shudder. Then, as one, they began to move. Not with the slow, shambling gait they had used before, but with a terrifying, jerking speed. They surged forward, a tide of dead flesh and green light, their target clear: the main gate of Vance Haven.
"No!" Alistair screamed, scrambling to his feet. He tried to summon his power, to raise a wall, to do anything to block their path. But his connection to the land felt thin, stretched. The fight with Varg, the effort of destroying the axe, had drained him. A low ridge of earth pushed up in front of the charging horde, but the leading Reanimates simply scrambled over it without breaking stride.
He was too weak. He was too far away.
He could only watch as the silent, unstoppable wave of the dead crashed against his home.
On the walls, Thora's voice rang out, sharp with command and fear. "Arrows! Loose everything! Hammers to the gate!"
A hail of arrows fell, peppering the advancing horde to little effect. The warriors with the resonance hammers braced themselves at the gate, their faces pale but determined. The heavy timber door shuddered under the impact of a hundred rotting fists.
Alistair began to run, his legs feeling like lead, his breath burning in his chest. Each step was an agony of helplessness. He saw a Reanimate, its body bristling with arrows, finally reach the gate and swing a decayed arm. A Graxian warrior met it with his hammer, turning it to dust, but two more took its place immediately.
He saw a section of the palisade, weakened by the constant pounding, splinter and crack. A Reanimate clawed its way through the gap before a Blue-Skin hunter speared it through the head.
They were being overwhelmed. The walls he had built with such hope, the alliance he had forged with such effort, were crumbling before his eyes because he had been tricked into leaving them.
He was still fifty paces away when he heard the sound he had been dreading. A great, groaning crack, followed by a thunderous crash.
The main gate shattered inwards.
A cloud of dust and splinters bloomed into the air. For a moment, the fighting stopped as everyone, attacker and defender alike, stared at the gaping hole where the gate had been.
Then, with a silent, hungry intensity, the green light in the Reanimates' eyes flared, and the horde poured into Vance Haven.
Alistair skidded to a halt, his heart freezing in his chest. The battle was no longer at the walls. It was inside the settlement. It was among the huts, the fire pits, the places where children were hiding.
He had lost. Varg had won.