It was with supreme regret that Ulka concluded the younger Blackjackets were looking at her with admiration. Not a revelation she wanted to have on the battlefield, especially while splattered with ghoul blood. She grimaced and wiped the flecks of crimson sludge off her arm, tinting streaks of her green skin black. The length of her polearm usually kept the mess at bay, but these rotbags were full of more fluids than she was used to, and they tended to burst.
It would take hours of scrubbing to kill any chance of an undead infection, and Lake Encarthan’s waters were probably just as tainted as the battlefield she stood on. Hell on a pike. Where? Where had she gone wrong? The Blackjackets were infamous for their loyalty to Druma and nothing else, and their masters knew the worth of that devotion. High pay, respect and prestige, the best equipment and training, pressed and fitted uniforms made of sturdy cloth, and thick leather boots to ward off the mud. The fashion wasn’t to Ulka’s taste, but she couldn’t complain about the quality. Not even Andoran’s army provided their irregulars with anything close. The skinflints in Druma even managed to keep a decent supply line running, and the Blackjacket’s civilian caravan had done a solid job of handling logistics...
The caravan! Screw the gods sideways, that was it, wasn’t it? She and her regulars just had to barge to the rescue when those shadowy forms had descended upon the civilian caravan. Dammit, dammit, dammit! She just had to look the hero, didn't she? She just had to feel a twinge in her black, shriveled lump of a heart at the thought of families and children getting slaughtered by something they couldn’t even touch! Ulka hated the fact civilians were even out here to begin with, but it was inevitable with mercenary groups this large. The fighters weren’t patriots, you couldn’t convince them to put up with the lonely hardships of a mere soldier.
Why did it have to be shadows? The caravan might not have needed her help against zombies or skeletons. They had a bold few who’d put up a resistance—Ulka made a mental note to circle around to that sullen little dwarven fletcher when this mess was done—but what could knitting needles and laundry lines do against something with no flesh?
Ugh, had she saved someone's husband? A daughter? That wasn’t the kind of devotion she could scare off with her usual tactic of being brutish and blunt. The very last thing she needed was more fresh-faced, bright-eyed whelps deciding they wanted to run along at her heels. From a moral standpoint, they weren’t that much better than the undead they were fighting. War camp hangers-on tended to be the kind of people who would smash in a dying widow’s nose in the rush to loot her family jewel box. But they were still people, and people always made things messy. She’d hear them sing songs around the campfire, watch them toss treats to the dogs, see one dance a little jig with his son. They’d save her the prime cuts of bacon at breakfast, ply her with bottles of Belkzen gin. They’d laugh at her stern grumbles and idle threats. They’d likeher. They’d rush to save her on the battlefield and take an arrow straight to the throat.
Ulka ground her teeth against the back of her tusks. There was still a fight to be won.
She let out a howl that ripped across the battlefield, an undulating cry that an Andoren soldier had likened to a shepherd’s call sung by a wolf. Her scattered soldiers marched up, spears out, to form up around her in the brackish muck.
“These ghouls want flesh?” she yelled. “Rip their damned feet off their damned legs and cram them down their damned throats!” Her soldiers laughed as they charged into the fray, like the rotten rat bastards that they were.
Ulka followed behind them, assessing the situation. Barring reinforcements from the lake, the battle wasn’t likely to last much longer. The Tyrant might have unfathomable horrors at his command, but those weren’t here. These were nothing more than offal Tar-Baphon had thrown at a hapless village to clear out space in his barracks. Her mercenaries and the Blackjackets would obliterate them, along with anything else unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity.
Though perhaps not without casualties. There was a sudden roar from somewhere out on the water, as one of the stilted houses nearby exploded into flames. The shockwave sent the seasoned warriors onto the wrong foot; even Ulka stumbled. A minor error, speaking to their military discipline, yet the dead were not so easily stunned. The ghouls pounced.
Ulka gave a shrill whistle, using her polearm to gesture to the caravan behind her. “Artillery fire! Retreat inland!” she commanded. That had almost certainly been a volley from one of the Tyrant's skeletal warships, not that Ulka could see far enough in this quadruple-damned sunlight to confirm. May Sarenrae find a dead rat in her most holy breakfast. If Ulka ever met the goddess, she'd pluck that sunbird like a pheasant and string her up in the larder.
The ghouls loped into the Blackjacket front lines as the soldiers began to fall back, rusted blades and rotting nails seeking gaps in their targets' armor. A Blackjacket youth stepped wrong in the loose earth, stumbling as the reedy grass caused his boot to slip. Ulka stepped up beside the man—a boy, in truth—and, in a single smooth motion, swung her polearm up in an arc that ripped through the ground. She ran on swift, simple instinct, the kind that must be earned if one wanted to ply the trade of war and live past twenty. It came with enough force to rip the ghoul’s legs clean off its torso.
Ulka cleaves a ghoul in two. Art by Pixoloid Studios
Ulka snorted as the disparate pieces thudded into the ground, baring her teeth and lowering her spear. A quick glance to the side confirmed her fears. The youth wasn’t just looking at her admiringly anymore. His gaze had gone past awe and settled just on the wrong side of devotion.
The orc snarled up at the quintuple-damned sunny sky, where she could only imagine the gods were laughing at her. “I'll hang the lot of you for this,” she mumbled.
Eleanor Ferron (she/her)
Senior Developer
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