Next chapter of Journey will be delayed by one day! I had to swap my schedule around a bit due to real life obligations, so I can't do my usual writing on Wednesday this week.

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  The water in Saltrvatrmarr Fortress’s bay began to swell. Normally the docks stood a meter or more above the surface of the water, but in moments the waves rose to the point of swallowing the docks beneath them. Moored boats strained against their tethers and slammed against the docks as the water churned.

  Once again the water surged upwards, but this time it did so only at the edges of the bay. The longboats were dropped into a depression at the water’s center. Their tethers snapped. Masts collided with each other and broke apart. Even the hulls themselves shattered into splinters.

  Alarmed soldiers backed away at the sight, abandoning their plans to load themselves onto longboats for a sortie. They reacted far too slowly. Abruptly the water inverted on itself, blasting shards of wood across the interior of Saltrvatrmarr Fortress. A chain, previously secured along the bottom of the entrance to the bay, whipped through dozens of men and women like chain shot.

  The soldiers nearest to the water took the brunt of it. It was as if several mages had cast explosion spells into a crowd. Chunks of flesh rained down across the northwestern side of the Fortress as people were reduced to little more than gore.

  Even Cinna found herself stunned into silence by the sudden and overwhelmingly destructive attack. In one fell swoop the port had been obliterated, taking dozens of her troops with it. No living army could have pull off an attack like this; only a lich could approach close enough underwater without the use of magic that could have been detected.

  Shocked as she was, Cinna quickly snapped into action the moment she spotted figures climbing out of the water.

  “Attack from the sea! Gunnarsen, I think this is what we’ve been waiting for. Direct the defense. I’m taking the field,” Cinna ordered. She grabbed her helmet from a nearby table and placed it on her head. Then she unslung her battleax.

  “How can you be sure? I’m skeptical as to whether this was ever more plan than wishful thinking,” Gunnarsen admitted. Surprised by his candor, Cinna turned back towards Gunnarsen and noticed how pale he’d become. Fear must have loosened his lips.

  “It doesn’t matter. Whether there’s a necromancer leading this attack or not we just lost dozens of soldiers in one fell swoop. Look out the window. Everyone that witnessed that is fleeing instead of standing and fighting, and that will only get worse as the word spreads. Taking to the field myself is the only way of restoring morale,” Cinna explained. “Signal for the nobles to join me. I’m expecting liches.”

  With that, Cinna strode out of the command room and rushed down the stairs to the courtyard. She emerged from the keep to find her knights armed and in formation, clearly having anticipated being deployed.

  “Knights, with me!” Cinna barked, making her way towards the ruined port. Along the way she passed frightened soldiers going the opposite direction, personally grabbing any that got close enough and ordering them to fall in. Some didn’t even need that much encouragement; just seeing the flag carried by Cinna’s standard bearer sufficed.

  “Are you warriors of Selkarc or cowardly skyfolk!?” Cinna roared over the din of battle, aided by an enchantment built into her helmet. “Death in battle is not something to be feared! It is a reward for your bravery! Stand and fight and you will be welcomed as the honored dead in the afterlife, but flee and your ancestors will shun your name! Follow me and prove yourselves before the Valkyries!”

  Cinna’s voice echoed off the walls of Saltrvatrmarr Fortress, heard by every man and woman present. Soon the flow of people reversed. Reminded of their heritage as a nation of warriors, even the levied troops found their courage.

  As Cinna passed through the low and wide gate to the port’s section of the fortress, she caught sight of the army of draugr emerging from the water. A hail of rocks met her advance. But before they reached her the projectiles were swept away by a wall of water courtesy of Countess Moller. A pallid man in drenched robes rose above the draugr, carried by a platform of stone. The countess lifted herself into the air to meet him.

  Other, less powerful liches cast spells at Cinna’s entourage in an effort to blow holes in their formation. Her nobles countered with their own magic. Fireballs burst in midair, dissipated by bursts of concentrated air. Lightning went off course, striking a metal rod drawn from the ground by a quick-thinking mage. Not every counterspell proved successful, but the undead only had time to pick off a few men here and there before the battle started in earnest.

  Cinna crashed into the draugr lines along with her knights, leading with a downswing of her enchanted ax. When she lifted the weapon it had been as light as a feather, but when she brought it down, it weighed more than she did. Her opening strike cleaved the closest draugr in half straight down the middle.

  Through the press of bodies, Cinna briefly caught sight of something out of place—a charred corpse, lightly dressed. Many of the draugr assaulting the walls were unarmored former civilians, but the group attacking from the sea consisted almost entirely of heavily armored soldiers. Given that the remained were liches and had already been engaged by the Selkarcian nobles, that had to be her target.

  She just had to reach it.

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  Raising her axe once more, Cinna waded into the action alongside her knights. Each and every one of them was a veteran of many battles, hand selected to fight alongside Cinna herself as part of her guard. Before now they had dominated every engagement against the undead she’d deployed them into. This time, however, the draugr fought back with equal skill and tenacity. There would be no easy wins today.

  Almost as if demonstrating that very fact, Cinna’s next opponent easily redirected her battleax into the ground when she swung it. Normally that would leave her off-balanced and vulnerable, but she reduced its weight and yanked it from where it had lodged in the paving stones before her opponent could capitalize on his advantage.

  Cinna caught a slash from the draugr’s greatsword on the steel haft of her battleax, noting with mild surprise that the blade came away unharmed. She wasn’t fighting a mere knight. This man bore an enchanted sword into battle and died with it in his hands. A noble from a country whose nobility didn’t eschew physical combat, perhaps, or even a fallen member of some royal family. In the midst of the scrum Cinna couldn’t identify his heraldry, but she knew with certainty that he was her equal or better.

  The two traded blow after blow without giving ground. She swung for his neck; he angled his sword to deflect the blow. He looped his sword under her guard and attempted to disarm her; she took one hand off her ax and allowed his sword to strike air. Cinna used her now-freed hand to catch her opponent by the wrist and gripped her ax just short of the head, attempting to chop at his elbow while he was restrained. The draugr spun his arm to break Cinna’s grapple and, half-swording, swung the pommel of his sword at her temple.

  Judging that strike survivable, Cinna took it on her armor. It failed to connect at a right angle and glanced off her helmet. Then she too grabbed her enemy’s sword by the blade. He’d overextended. Cinna tore the weapon from the draugr’s grasp and tossed it aside, then gripped her ax in both hands. The undead warrior attempted to deflect her next swing with his armor—or perhaps he simply planned to accept the blow in exchange for getting in close.

  Either way, Cinna’s ax homed in on a damaged part of his pauldron and tore straight through the weakened steel. The severed arm fell, dangling by an intact strip of chain mail. Losing a limb did nothing to slow the draugr down, but now he had only one arm and no weapon. Cinna swept his legs with the shaft of her ax and then brought it around in an overhead swing. With her weapon’s weight multiplied several times over on the way down it easily cleaved through the plate mail protecting the draugr’s other arm.

  But Cinna had only a brief moment to feel satisfaction at her victory. She was looking around for her quarry, registering that her knights were pushing the enemy back, when a deluge of water splattered down across both sides.

  What she saw when she looked up chilled Cinna to the bone. Countess Moller hung suspended in midair with a stone spike through her gut. The impact had caused her to lose control of her spell. Cinna could just barely make out the countess’s lips moving.

  “Mother!”

  Hearing the countess’s son scream in shock, Cinna almost averted her gaze. Just before she could, the countess completed her final spell. Her body erupted into countless spears formed from her own blood, every one of which launched towards the lich she’d been fighting. Moller must have infused that spell with every scrap of mana she had left. It tore through the solid stone the lich used to defend itself and perforated it, sending fragments of rock and pieces of the creature’s body across the battlefield.

  Although Cinna’s knights continued to fight ferociously, the death of the Selkarcian garrison’s single most powerful mage shook the morale of the common soldiers and left many backing away in fear. She didn’t know if she could rally them a second time. Not after a loss like that.

  Had she made a tactical error? Should she have risked losing a portion of the walls to lure the necromancer into a trap instead? Could she have drawn out the liches ahead of time somehow in order to cull their numbers?

  It didn’t matter. The only way forward now was through.

  “General!”

  Cinna turned to find Gunnarsen squeezing his way through frightened soldiers to reach her. As her knights had continued to push forward this entire time, the frontline had moved away from Cinna slightly, but this location remained incredibly dangerous. Whatever news Gunnarsen had must have been of immense importance.

  “Report.”

  “High General Selkarc has ordered an immediate retreat to the second line of defense at the Stryk River.”

  “What!? We can’t! Not yet! The necromancer leading these undead is right within our grasp!” Cinna argued, even knowing her uncle wasn’t there to hear her arguments.

  “We have no choice, ma’am! There’s been a breach in the wall near Roland’s Redoubt and draugr are already pouring through. If we wait we risk being cut off from behind,” Gunnarsen informed Cinna.

  Cursing the timing, Cinna held a debate in her own head. Roland’s Redoubt was far from Saltrvatrmarr Fortress and it would take time for the undead to cut her forces off. But there were thousands of soldiers stationed here. Moving them all the way over the Stryk River would take time as well. A delay might mean getting intercepted in the field.

  She didn’t know how much longer it would take to break through the elite draugr guarding the necromancer. On top of that, without Countess Moller, dismembered undead would pile up until the attacking army could simply walk right over the walls. Her son didn’t have the skill needed to do it himself. Even if the order to retreat hadn’t come, Cinna didn’t know if she could have held the fortress for much longer. Now she would never know.

  “Organize the retreat,” Cinna ordered in a voice full of bitterness. “Pull units from the wall only when the rest of the fortress is empty.”

  “They’ll be too exhausted to serve as the rearguard,” Gunnarsen pointed out.

  “They won’t have to. I’m going to begin a fighting retreat to the main gate the moment the necromancer is eliminated. My knights and I will hold the gate until everyone is away,” Cinna replied.

  “General, you’re the heir to the throne. We can’t lose you here. Allow me to lead the rearguard,” Gunnarsen volunteered. But Cinna shook her head.

  “If I flee first this will turn from an orderly retreat into a route. And if we don’t eliminate that necromancer here, our pursuers will be that much more organized. I don’t plan to die here, but I must remain behind to complete this last mission before withdrawing. Once the necromancer is gone I should have no trouble escaping,” Cinna explained.

  “We don’t even know if there’s a necromancer at all! General, please. Don’t throw your life away out of pride.”

  “Even so. You have your orders, captain, and I expect you to follow them.”

  Gunnarsen nodded reluctantly, realizing there was no time to argue.

  “Yes, general. Good luck, and good hunting.”

  As Gunnarsen returned the way he came, Cinna turned back to the battle. She once again spotted the charred skeleton hanging in the back. With her target in sight, Cinna took a step forward, kicking something lying by her feet—somehow, the greatsword wielded by her last opponent had ended up there in the chaos. Taking the sword in one hand and her axe in the other, Cinna charged back into the fight.