Amazon Apocalypse 6: Chapter 22

“That castle will be much easier to assault now when it’s half finished than when the defenses are done. Let me hear your plans.”

I turned to Katar and Liliana, who were closest to me. I had a few ideas of my own, but I wanted to hear what they thought.

“I’ll blow up the front gates with a big magical blast! After that, we’ll charge in and storm the place. They should start surrendering once we’ve taken the walls.” Liliana looked proud at what was frankly a ridiculous plan.

“Has that ever worked for you in the past?” I asked.

“Well... no...” Liliana’s shoulders slumped. “But I’ve just gotten unlucky before. This time, it’ll work!”

I turned to Katar, praying for a better answer. Alas, I was doomed to be disappointed.

“I guess we could try talking to them, maybe? Maybe the people building that castle will rise up and help us fight if we can get word to them that we’re here to help. If we can just talk to those horn guys and show them the error of their ways, we might not have to fight at all.” His bright and hopeful eyes shone among the shade of the forest canopy overhead.

I slammed a gauntlet palm onto the faceplate of my helmet.

“No, that’s even worse. Please tell me somebody here can come up with something reasonable.” I looked around at my newly appointed officers. None came forward with more ideas, which meant they probably hadn’t been able to come up with anything better than Liliana and Katar.

We’d be going for my plan one way or another, but it looked like this crew needed a lot more training than I initially planned.

“Alright, listen carefully, you guys. Here’s how you take down a castle...”

After a brief strategy meeting and breaking into several teams, I had a small group of brave volunteers split off from the main army. Katar wanted to meet our enemies to teach them the errors of their ways, so I’d be giving him that opportunity.

He approached with his armor and weapons hidden and waltzed up to the half-built fortifications. I listened to what he was saying.

“Good afternoon. I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge. But while I have you, would you say the labor conditions for building this castle seem particularly harsh? It seems like you’re all working quite hard,” Katar poked his head around the construction site.

A few human craftsmen poked their heads up from their work to look at Katar, but they rapidly dipped their heads back down when they noticed an oni stalking toward Katar.

“And who the hell are you?” A gruff-looking oni demanded. He was bare-chested and covered in gruesome-looking tattoos that trailed up his arms and along his chest and back. From the way he spoke, I suspected he was a human-turned-Oni rather than someone from Onibushi.

“I’m Katar. Well, Captain Katar, now. I’m part of the heroic order of Black Knights! We’re just checking things out around here and making sure everyone is alright. What do you--“ Before Katar could even finish introducing himself, the oni had drawn a wicked curved sword.

“You’ll regret coming here, kitty,” the oni attacked.

Katar drew his own sword and deflected the blow, giving the half-dozen comrades with him time to retreat.

“Run! Make for the trees!” Katar yelled at his companions, and they fled on foot.

Katar probably could have taken the oni fighting him, but that wasn’t part of the plan. Instead, he bought just enough time for his comrades to turn tail and run before joining them in running himself.

A horn went up from the castle encampment, blowing wide and followed by a shout by the oni warrior who’d just been clashing swords with Katar.

“We’ve got trespassers! They fled into the forest. Looks like we’re on a hunt tonight!” the oni shouted. A dozen cheers rang out from the oni warriors as they picked up their weapons and charged after Katar.

He led them into the woods and out of sight of the fortress, ducking past shrubs and forest canopy. Eventually, Katar burst through the clearing I was in and came to a stop, panting to catch his breath.

“T-they didn’t want to listen to me,” Katar said between labored breaths.

I chuckled darkly. “Too bad. If they’d at least heard you out, maybe they would have lived. Liliana? Go ahead and make the first move. Everybody else, fall in and encircle them!”

The oni warriors from the castle charged through the forest in pursuit of Katar and his comrades... and ran straight into our ambush.

There was a moment of shocked confusion in their eyes as a hundred black knights surrounded their fifty fighters, all out of breath and out of formation.

“Now!” I signaled Liliana, and she unleashed the most powerful bolt of lighting she had at her disposal. It shot from between her hands and jumped forward, bouncing from oni warrior to oni warrior and sending a dozen of them into writhing convulsions on the ground. The long odds for our enemy suddenly got even worse.

“Charge!” I yelled, and the remaining Black Knights attacked as one.

With every advantage at our side, we made short work of the oni force pursuing Katar. They were only D and C-Grades, and I could have taken them all down myself if I wanted, but it was a valuable learning experience for my recruits.

I grabbed the oni who’d tried to gut Katar at the gates, broke both his arms, and tossed him on the ground at Katar’s feet.

“Finish him off,” I ordered.

The man wheezed as he tried to lift his broken arms. Katar looked green in the face at the order, but he grits his teeth and follows my orders.

The other Black Knights had a much easier time finishing off the remaining Oni, but I followed Katar to the edge of the battlefield, where he promptly began vomiting.

“First kill?” I asked.

Katar nodded.

“I figured. How’d you get to C-Grade without killing anyone?” I asked.

Katar wiped his mouth. “Monsters. I only ever had to kill monsters until now. When we met these big green fellows who looked tough and told us they’d take us under their wing. We signed a deal with them so they could be in charge and lead us into the next stage of the integration. They had lots of warriors and liked fighting, so we thought it was a fair deal. Only once we agreed to become their subordinate faction they started demanding we hand over all our resources and women to them. It wasn’t nice, and if not for the Black Knights saving my village, everyone I care about would still be slaving away in their mines.”

I patted him on the back. “Let it out. It’s good to get it over with here and now because you’ll have to do something like this again soon. There’s still a castle to take.

***

The oni hadn’t been quite foolish enough to send all their troops into the forest to chase Katar and his companions, and now that their people hadn’t come back, they’d no doubt be on their guard. Taking out the rest of them would be harder. The main benefit of our ambush was that we could do much of the fighting done away from the construction site, which would help minimize human casualties.

But to replicate that feat now would be harder. The remaining oni wouldn’t come into the forest to be ambushed by us again, but I realized it was possible to get them to send the human workers away, which would leave us all clear to attack. Fortunately, I had something in mind.

There was one thing I never liked about these feudal Japanese castles. They were made of wood.

“You sure you can hit it with a fireball from here?” I asked Liliana.

“Positive. I have a long-range fireball spell for just this purpose. And to think, somebody was telling me I wasted my ability slots by having twelve different kinds of fireballs on me.” Liliana had her hands on her hips and grinned up at me with a wide smile.

“Yes, congratulations. Sometimes I’m proven wrong. Anyway, shoot the corner there until it starts burning. We don’t need to bring it down, but we do need all the workers trying to put it out.”

Liliana set fire to the outer edge of the castle, nearest the water. Sure enough, the workers dropped what they were doing to grab buckets and form a line. The last thing they wanted was to see all their hard work go up in smoke. The oni warriors just looked at the fire from afar and laughed. Putting out flames wasn’t their job, and they were happy to stick to their posts along the half-finished walls.

With the workers safely diverted, we began our attack on the other end of the castle.

“Alright, Liliana. You wanted to knock down the castle walls? Here’s your chance.”

Liliana began conjuring her most powerful spells, the same one that had destroyed the shield surrounding the town Frank and I saved. Only this castle had no shield enchantment protecting its walls. Instead of shattering the enchantment, this time Liliana shattered stone and wood in a thunderous explosion.

“Behind me!” I yelled, leading from the front with my enormous sword raised.

I was by far the largest figure and by far the most powerful too, so naturally, I drew the most attention. The enemies had no B-Grades among them, but one of the oni warriors was at the high C-Grade. I charged straight for him. He barely had time to heft his warhammer by the time I was on top of him. I slammed into him with my shoulder, sliced his weapon in two with my sword, and then followed up with a massive uppercut that sliced him clean through from crotch to shoulder.

To their credit, the oni never ran. The death of their strongest fighter only sent the rest of them into a battle rage, and they stomped, hollered, and screamed at the top of their lungs as the red mist swirled around them, and they threw themself into battle with reckless abandon.

I hacked through a dozen of them myself, but the Black Knights storming the castle did the bulk of the work. By the time the workers putting out fires in the distance realized something was happening, the battle was already won.

“This would have been a tough fight if we charged them. These guys don’t go down easily,” Liliana said, kicking a body. She was nearly B-Grade again after the last few days of absorbing the cultivation supplies I’d given her and had been flinging a considerable number of spells.

“I saw you firing spells from the rear line. I take it that’s how most from the Order of Sorcery fight?” I asked curiously.

“We have a scholarly term for the black knights in our little circle. We call them meat shields.” Liliana smiled, hand on her hip as though that title were the highest praise coming from her lips.

“Most wouldn’t take that as a compliment. And it’s good that you understand the importance of taking cover when you’re a ranged combatant. But if these oni were smart, they would have charged you. I suspect that if I hadn’t killed their leader quickly, he would have done just that. I don’t know how fights between you and the Sages of Camlaan normally go, but you need to be prepared for that in the future.”

Liliana’s shoulders slumped. “Let me guess. You want me to trade in some of my precious fireballs for a lame shield spell or something?”

“Not a lame shield. A very cool and useful shield. Anyway, enough lessons for now. Let’s go check on the wounded.”

I turned and looked around for Katar and my other officers. I found my officers, but not Katar.

With a frown, I picked an officer at random and asked for a combat report. He didn’t have one for me, so I asked him to take me to wherever he saw our people bleeding out on the ground.

“There’s these guys here, and three dead over there.” The man jerked his thumb behind us.

I looked over the wounded. There were plenty of broken bones and stab wounds, but a quick lesson on tourniquets was enough to ensure nobody would die within the next hour. That left me time to check in with the dead and see how dead they were.

“Let me see the dead. Sometimes people are less dead than they look.”

The officer gave me an odd look but let me over to where the dead were gathered.

As I had feared, one of them was Katar. He’d been on the front lines and wore only a black tunic instead of the black armor most of the other knights had, so I wasn’t surprised he’d gone down first.

I glanced over at the other two dead men. One was the mouthy man whose jaw I’d tried to break while sparring after his comments on slaughtering all the noncombatants in the citadel. He had his arm ripped off and had already bled out by the time we got there.

Another was a grim-looking man who’d stayed quiet but had chuckled along to enough of the chatter about murder that I’d marked him as potential trouble. He’d never made trouble himself, but I always found him hanging around the louder, more stupid troublemakers. Given his high level and the exceptionally fine make of his black armor, I suspected he was one of the people who benefited the most from the slaughter at the citadel.

During the battle, an oni had run him through the heart with a sword and left it there. The unarmed oni’s body rested nearby, with his arms still cradling his intestines after his belly had been sliced open. The two had probably killed each other at some point during the battle.

I ignored them both as well and turned my gaze back to Katar. He was dead, but his soul was only now coming loose from his body. It looked like he was struggling to rouse himself to wakefulness, but it was pointless as he was. One of the oni had gotten him right between the eyes with a warhammer, splattering a chunk of his skull on the ground nearby.

Despite the gruesome look, the piece of flesh was surprisingly intact after shattering into just three pieces, and the flesh itself was still alive.

“Poor Katar. I will ensure he has a hero’s burial,” Liliana sighed.

“Hold that thought,” I said as I gathered up the bits of skull and brain and stuck them back where they were supposed to be.

“He’s gone, Doomblade. Let him go,” Liliana said sadly. She placed a hand on my shoulder. For a moment, she seemed like the experienced and noble sorceress she often pretended to be.

“You have all that fire magic. I assume you can use it like a cultivator? As in, no spells, just draw it into your hands in a small quantity?” I glanced over my shoulder at her.

“Of course,” Liliana said, and she called a fistful of fire into being around her hand. It coiled between her fingers in a little glowing wisp.

“Then tend to the wounded. Sword wounds will need to be cauterized after the weapons are pulled free. You know how to do that, right?” I asked.

Liliana nodded, leaving me to work on Katar’s body. Putting him back together again would take a bit of advanced magic. Doomblade really shouldn’t possess.

I used my Kindling Architect abilities to mend the broken bones of Katar’s skull and turn it back into an unblemished whole. I made sure not to patch up the skin too well since it would be odd if he got up from this without so much as a scar. After making sure it looked good, I looked around for any remaining bits and pieces of his brain scattered along the ground and found most of it.

There was still a bit missing, but I found it stuck to the head of a hammer in the hands of a dead oni halfway across the battlefield. That must have been Katar’s killer.

After retrieving all I could find of Katar’s brain, I passed the pieces extradimensional through his skull. He might be missing a few childhood memories, but with a few check ups and tweaks the next few times I saw him would ensure he wouldn’t have any cognitive issues.

Since the rest of his body was intact and his soul was fighting so hard to stay alive, bringing him back was as simple as restarting his heart and getting everything kicking again.

I pounded on his chest a few times, and eventually, he sat up with a start.

“Wake up, kid!” I shouted once I knew his soul had settled into place.

“H-huh? D-Doomblade, sir! I didn’t mean to fall asleep, sir! It won’t happen again!” Katar said hastily as he scrambled to his feet. I caught him as he swayed and nearly fell back down. I caught him before he hit the ground.

I realized I missed some damage to his inner ear and a few chunks of the brain it connected to. I hastily fixed the damage, and he went cross-eyed for a moment while I shifted his brain around. But it was over in just a few seconds.

“You didn’t fall asleep, Katar. You took a nasty blow to the head with a hammer. This is the thing that nearly killed you. You’ll have a big scar right there, but I think it’ll look good on you.” I hefted the warhammer that had killed him and handed it over.

Katar looked at it, equal parts interested and horrified as he rubbed his forehead. I was certain he had a nasty headache.

I patted him on the shoulder. “You’re temporarily relieved of duty. Just rest up a bit. I’ll check in on you later to make sure you didn’t wind up with any brain damage from that hammer blow.”

I helped him to the edge of the wall, where he lay with his back against it, cradling the hammer. Before I left him, I grabbed the most intact pieces of armor from the two dead Black Knights.

“See if you can get that stuff on you. The helmet especially,” I tapped my forehead, then pointed to the helmet.

Katar blinked away some of his confusion and started adjusting armor straps to fit himself. I left him to it, then rejoined Liliana.

Much to my surprise, she actually did know a thing or two about using fire to cauterize a wound. The way she did it was quick and clean and spoke of plenty of practice. I’d thought I’d need to pull a few more tricks to save the people I liked from this little army, but it looked like most of them would pull through whether I liked it or not.

“Well done. I’m surprised you don’t have a healing spell with abilities like that,” I said as I inspected Liliana’s work.

“I do, but this helps a lot faster. Are we going to bury Katar and the other dead here or take them back to the citadel?” Liliana asked.

“We can bury the dead here, but not Katar. He’s fine. He just took a little knock to the head. The kid's resting now, but I’ll have him walk it off soon.”

Liliana blinked at me. “Doomblade... half his head was missing. He’s dead.”

I pointed. “Don’t exaggerate. A third at most. And he’s fine now. Look, he’s right over there.”

I waved to Katar, who looked up sluggishly and eventually started waving back.

“Wait. What? How?” She turned to me, brows tightly furrowed.

I scratched my helmet awkwardly. Truthfully, I’d been counting on her having no medical knowledge. If I’d seen her patching up the troops like she was now, I would have been a lot more discrete about resurrecting Katar.

A few others had overheard us and turned to Katar with interest.

“By the heavens? The kid’s alive! I saw that oni brute smash his face in!” one of the Black Knights exclaimed.

“The boy was as dead as a fish after a bear shit it out three days later!” another said.

They were all looking at me for an explanation. Inwardly, I cursed.

“Uh... it’s a technique from my homeland called... ahem... the Heimlich maneuver. Yes, that’s it. Besides, it was really not as bad as it looked." I waved off their incredulous looks. "Anyway, come on, let’s all go see how those workers are holding up after the fight and help them put out that fire we started. Come on, hop to it, men!” I clapped my hands and got everything moving, hoping they’d forget about Katar mysteriously coming back to life.

It wasn’t that impressive, after all. I knew plenty of people who’d come back from the dead.

<Outline>

Something tells me resurrecting the dead is going to be a bit more memorable for the Black Knights than Carter hopes...