Chương 96: The Battle for Tidemark

I was halfway down Elindra's tower when the city woke up; gradually, Tidemark had arisen from its slumber, fear and confusion spreading over the Jewel of the Coast. Thousands of voices filled the streets as the citizens opened their eyes to a world they didn't recognize. People hurried out of doorways, calling for family members. Children cried, and dogs barked. An old man sat up in the middle of the road and stared at the smoke rising from the gate with an expression that implied he still believed he was asleep.

But the civilians weren't the only ones waking up after the spell broke. While descending from the tower, I watched a squad of six city guards who'd been slumped against the wall of a barracks rise to their feet in perfect unison. Unlike the others who had a hard time shaking off the enchanted sleep, these soldiers stood just like puppets yanked upright by invisible strings, their eyes open but empty, their weapons already in hand.

They advanced toward the breached gate and began marching, without a word, without hesitation. They were moving with mechanical precision. It was happening everywhere: throughout the city, I could see clusters of soldiers snapping awake with that same puppet-like precision, hundreds of them flooding the streets. Mind control? Darius's army had just doubled in size, and these new troops had no sense of self-preservation, no fear, and no mercy.

Whatever the robed figure on the Knight's Tower had done, the city's awakening wasn't the end of the story. It was a weapon. I hit the ground floor of the tower and emerged into the palace courtyard. The sounds of battle came from multiple directions, mixed with the screams and cries of newly awakened citizens. A group of brainwashed guards came around the corner, blades ready, heading toward the temple district. They didn't see me.

I pressed flat against the wall and let them pass, then slid through the courtyard gate into the streets. I knew that I couldn't fight dark mages alone; most were level 40 and above. Their magic operated on a tier that rendered my damage irrelevant, but I could still offer some help to the Count's heavy hitters along the way. Two blocks from the palace, I found my first opportunity as I yanked myself to the top of the rooftops, Spider-Man style.

A group of freed knights, four of them, had cornered two dark mages in a narrow street near the merchant district. The mages had erected a shadow wall across the width of the alley, and the knights couldn't get through. Every time one of them struck the barrier, dark energy lashed back, forcing them to retreat. But the mage was focused forward. He didn't see me above. I nocked an arrow and aimed. I only had to break their concentration for the barrier to collapse.

"Now!" I shouted. The lead knight noticed me and didn't hesitate. She drove her longsword toward the barrier as I sent a Piercing Shot straight into one of the mages. The shadow wall cracked, splintered, and collapsed. The knights charged through. Two strikes from the sword, one shield bash from the knight behind her, and the dark mages were gone. The lead knight looked up at me, recognition glimmering across her face.

"Adventurer! I recognize you from the Count's hearing."

"Orion. What's the situation?"

"Chaos. Sleeping soldiers had awakened, serving the dark mages, and they are everywhere. They're flooding toward the breach and the temple district. Court Mage Elindra and High Priest Aldric are trying to break whatever spell is controlling them, but they're pinned down at the Church Square."

"And the Count?"

"Pushing toward the Knight's Tower with his vanguard. He broke through the gate minutes ago." She pointed northwest, toward the hill where the Tower dominated the skyline.

"If you want to help, help him. We can handle the streets." I nodded and ran. The gate was a ruin. The breach was ten meters wide, and the ancient stone that had been protecting the city was blasted apart by the combined force of the Trident's power and hundreds of players simultaneously hitting it with their strongest abilities. Rubble clogged the gap, but adventurers were already flowing through, climbing across shattered masonry and fanning out into the city's lower tiers.

The streets beyond the gate were unruly. Players clashed with brainwashed soldiers in every intersection. The enchanted troops fought relentlessly with jagged movements and empty stares. They were mostly from the city watch, their levels ranging from 22 to 30. Tough opponents, but at this stage of the game, players could handle them with a bit of a numbers advantage and constant potions. Lothras was at the heart of it.

The Paladin had planted himself at a major crossroads three blocks past the breach, his Shield of Failed Triumph anchoring a defensive line that protected a cluster of terrified civilians who'd woken up in the middle of a war zone. Somnus and Redcap flanked him, the Acolyte's debuffs slowing every brainwashed soldier that approached while the Lancer chain CC'd them into submission.

"They're not in control!" Lothras shouted to the players around him.

"Subdue, don't kill! These are Tidemark's people! Damage them down to 20%, then a hard CC breaks the spell!" He knew it was easier said than done. The brainwashed soldiers didn't pull their punches, and 'subduing' someone swinging a sword at your face necessitated a level of restraint that not every player possessed. But most of them tried. Shields bashed instead of blades cutting. Stuns and roots without lethal follow-up. The adventurers fought with one hand tied behind their backs, and they held the line anyway.

Verdugo and Los Asesinos had advanced further into the city, making a path toward the administrative district. Rafael's taunts caught the attention of the brainwashed soldiers, which was fine by Verdugo, because every soldier looking at Rafael wasn't looking at the Battleaxe of Ur'Ka coming from the side. Stone and Sylph moved with the main column, the Guardian's tower shield clearing the way while the Ranger provided covering fire from elevated positions.

They'd developed a new rhythm for this fight: Stone would bash a brainwashed soldier to the ground, and Sylph would pin them there with a new skill, Arrow Net, immobilizing without killing. Shieldbreaker's voice rang out above the noise, directing future members of Oathkeepers to hold a secondary chokepoint near the harbor district. Thorax and Virtune fought at his flanks, the three of them proving that understanding combat at a theoretical level translated just fine into practice.

The adventurers were making progress. But it was slow, grinding, and the brainwashed soldiers kept coming. I caught up with the Count's vanguard near the base of the hill that led to the Knight's Tower. Count Vizgrad fought at the front of his knights, the Tidemark Trident blazing in his hands. And fight, he did. The Count moved with a fluidity I hadn't expected, the Trident spinning in patterns that combined thrust, sweep, and parry into a seamless style.

Every time the weapon's blue light twinkled, brainwashed soldiers nearby flinched, their movements stuttering as the Trident's energy interfered with whatever black magic controlled them. Some of them actually stopped. I watched a guard stumble mid-swing as the Trident's light covered him, his empty eyes flickering with dizziness before a loyal knight disarmed him and pushed him aside. It looked like the symbol of Tidemark was undoing the spell, one soldier at a time.

Captain Vern and Ser Syrak flanked the Count, sword and spear cleaving paths through the resistance. The twenty-eight loyal knights fought in tight formation, shields locked, pushing uphill toward the Tower like a siege engine. I fell in with them, my bow providing support fire from behind the shield wall, staggering soldiers, trapping them with Web Trap, and creating fire zones with Burning Arrow to create a gap in a defensive line. They were small contributions, but in a battle this dense, they added up.

The Knight's Tower sat at the peak of the hill. It was a fortress designed to be the last line of defense for Tidemark's military command. The road switchbacked up the slope, each turn defended by barricades manned by Darius's loyalists. These weren't brainwashed soldiers. These were the real traitors. Knights who'd chosen Darius willingly, who fought with discipline and conviction because they believed in his cause, soldiers who betrayed their rightful liege for promise of wealth, fame, and power.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. They fought harder, with a will to kill. The good thing? They didn't need subduing. Captain Vern led the charge against the first barricade, his sword splitting a shield and a skull in two with one strike. Ser Syrak was beside him, quick and precise, disabling an enemy knight with a thrust to the sword arm before kicking him off the barricade. The Count didn't slow down.

The Trident swept through a group of defenders, its range and power clearing the road with broad swings, arcane power dismantling barricades and soldiers alike. These were high-level NPCs fighting high-level NPCs, and the scale of the combat was unlike anything I'd seen. Each of their strikes was powerful enough to fracture stone. Their parries triggered shockwaves through the air.

A traitor knight activated a skill that wreathed his sword in black fire, and the Count met it head-on, the Trident's blue light and the sword's dark flames detonating on contact with enough force to send soldiers around them flying. The vanguard pushed through three barricades in ten minutes, leaving bodies and shattered defenses in their wake. The Knight's Tower rose above us, its gates open, as though inviting us in. And there, in the wide plaza before the Tower entrance, Darius Vizgrad was waiting.

He looked nothing like his uncle. Where Count Vizgrad was broad and weathered, Darius was lean, sharp-featured, with dark hair swept back from a face that might have been handsome if it weren't twisted with hate. He wore armor of black and crimson, the avian sigil emblazoned across his cuirass, and he held a longsword in one hand with the lazy confidence of someone who'd never lost a fight. Behind him stood a half-dozen knights in matching dark armor. Darius's personal guard. The best of his loyalists.

And flanking the group, standing slightly apart, Calian. The Captain's longbow rested on his back, his sword at his hip. He watched our approach with an expression of detached amusement, like a spectator at a play he'd already seen the ending to. Above them, on the Tower's battlements, the robed figure remained motionless, arms still raised, still channeling whatever spell was fueling the brainwashed army throughout the city, clearly fighting with Elindra and Aldric on a battlefield we couldn't see.

The Count stopped twenty paces from his nephew. For a moment, nobody moved.

"Robert." Darius's voice was composed and natural.

"You look tired."

"Darius." The Count's reply held the burden of a man who'd spent the last two days marching, fighting, and watching his city burn.

"Surrender. Now. While I'm still inclined to show mercy." Darius laughed. It was a short, harsh sound.

"Mercy. You always were soft, Uncle. That's why the throne was wasted on you." He raised his longsword and pointed it at the Count.

"The Trident belongs to the strongest. Prove you deserve it." The Count's face stiffened. He lowered the Trident into a lance stance: point forward, shaft braced under his arm, feet spread in the balanced posture of a trained spearfighter. The Count's class was a lancer variant. The Trident wasn't just a symbol; it was his weapon, matched to his fighting style as naturally as the Emberwood Longbow fit mine.

Darius settled into his own stance: blade held high, weight on his back foot, with the readiness of a swordsman preparing to strike. The two Vizgrads moved at the same time, with speed that made my duel with Kaelith look like slow motion. The collision was nothing like the fights I'd been in, either. It wasn't even close to the battles I'd witnessed in the streets. The shockwave from it jolted the Knight's Tower at its core. The Trident thrust forward like a line of lightning.

Darius sidestepped, his sword sweeping upward in a counter that would have bisected anyone else present, except for the highest level knights. Robert pivoted, the Trident's shaft deflecting the blade, and followed with a sweeping strike that gouged a trench in the plaza's stone. Darius rolled under it, came up slashing, and caught the Count across the shoulder. Sparks flew. The Count's armor held, but the force of the blow drove him back a step. Around them, the knights clashed. Vern against Darius's guard captain.

Syrak against two traitor knights at once. The Count's loyalists versus Darius's chosen, warriors fighting warriors who'd once served together, now wanting each other dead. I fired from behind, picking targets among Darius's guards. My arrows couldn't do much to knights at these levels, but a well-placed shot could distract and force a dodge that opened a gap for Vern's sword or Syrak's spear, or help with zoning. The Count and Darius fought on. From their brief exchanges, Darius proved to be a tiny bit faster.

His sword moved in patterns perfected by years of training, though amplified by levels of power that turned every blow into a shockwave. He used skills I'd never encountered: a horizontal slash that split into three phantom blades, a dash that left afterimages, a rising cut that launched a column of dark energy skyward. But the Count was stronger. The Trident gave him reach, and he used every centimeter of it.

He controlled the distance with thrusts that kept Darius at bay, then punished overextension with sweeps that cracked the ground. The weapon's arcane aura seared through Darius's dark-infused abilities, neutralizing enchantments that would have overwhelmed anyone else. More than that, Robert Vizgrad fought with one thing in mind, a thing that elevated him even more above his opponent. He fought to save his home. Each hit carried the weight of a ruler defending his people, every block a refusal to yield.

Every counter stood as a promise that the man who sat on the Seastone Throne would not surrender it to treachery. The duel continued for minutes that felt like eternity. Both fighters suffered wounds: the Count's armor was dented in half a dozen places, blood seeping from a cut above his eye, while Darius's breastplate was cracked along the beak of the emblem, and his left arm hanging at an angle that suggested something broken beneath the armor. And the tide was turning further.

The Count's strikes were landing more often, hitting harder, driving Darius back step by step across the plaza. The Trident flamed with increasing intensity, its blue light pulsing in rhythm with its holder's heartbeat, not leaving even a shadow of a doubt about who was its rightful wielder. Darius stumbled but caught himself, and parried a thrust that should have ended the fight, but barely, the Trident's point scraping along his ribs. He was losing, and he knew it.

"Calian!" Darius's voice quavered with distress.

"As we agreed! Bring the mages!" Every eye in the plaza turned to the traitor-Captain. Calian stood where he'd been standing since the fight began. He hadn't moved or drawn his weapon. Hadn't so much as shifted his weight. He looked at Darius with an expression I'd seen once before, in a different context. The way someone looked at a tool that had served its purpose. Then he smiled.

"The agreement," Calian said, "was never about you." The color drained from Darius's face.

"What?" Calian turned and walked toward the Knight's Tower entrance without another word, unconcerned about what was about to happen, as if the battle raging around him, the duel between uncle and nephew, the fate of an entire county, was simply beneath his attention. On the Tower's battlements above, the robed figure lowered its arms. The channeling stopped. The dark presence that had been emitting from the Tower's peak simply vanished, as a candle's flame snuffed between fingers.

Calian walked through the Tower's gates and into the shadows within. The dark mage was already gone. I nocked an arrow and aimed at Calian's retreating back. Four hundred and fifty meters. That was how far I'd shot tonight. This was thirty. An easy shot. The easiest shot of my life. A pulse of dark energy flared from the Tower's entrance, and the gates slammed shut with a force that shook the ground. Calian was gone. Darius screamed. It was a cry of pure rage.

The betrayal had broken something in him, some last reserve of composure, and what remained was a man who'd gambled everything on allies who'd just abandoned him at the most critical moment. He threw himself at the Count with reckless fury, sword swinging in wild, powerful arcs that lacked the accuracy of his earlier technique. It was a frantic attempt of a desperate man. Count Vizgrad did not waver.

He caught the first swing on the Trident's shaft, deflected the second, and drove the weapon's point into his nephew's sword arm. Darius's blade dropped to the ground. The Count planted the Trident's butt against the stone and leveled the point at his nephew's throat. Darius sank to his knees, grasping his arm, with pain and fury on his face, along with the emerging understanding that he had been used.

"It's over, Darius," the Count said. Around them, the fight between the knights was ending too. Without Calian, without the dark mages, Darius's personal guard lost their nerve. Two dropped their weapons. The others fought on for a few more seconds before Vern and Syrak finished the resistance. I lowered my bow. We won, but my hands were shaking, and it wasn't from exhaustion. It was from the look on Calian's face as he'd walked away. His smile.

That absolute, unshakable certainty that everything, the coup, the dark mages, Darius's ambition, all of it, had been nothing more than a means to an end. An end we still didn't understand. Across the city, the spell broke. It happened all at once. The robed figure's departure had broken whatever connection sustained the brainwashing enchantment, and the effect was immediate and dramatic. Brainwashed soldiers halted mid-swing.

The emptiness left their eyes, replaced by confusion, horror, and in many cases, recognition of what they'd been doing. Swords dropped from nerveless fingers. Men and women who'd been fighting like automatons seconds ago recoiled, staring at the people they'd been trying to kill. And looking with horror at the ones they did. In the streets near the breach, a sergeant came to his senses with his sword lifted above an adventurer who'd been knocked to the ground.

He stared at his own weapon as if it belonged to someone else, then threw it aside and sank to his knees. Lothras caught a soldier who collapsed mid-charge, the man's legs giving out as the spell released him. The Paladin lowered him gently to the ground.

"You're safe," Lothras said.

"It's over." In the Church Square, the shift was even more dramatic. Elindra and Aldric had been working in tandem for the better part of an hour, the Court Mage's arcane expertise complementing the High Priest's divine power in a counter-spell of extraordinary complexity. They'd been close to breaking through when the robed figure's departure did it for them. Elindra lowered her hand and surveyed the result with characteristic understatement.

"Well. That simplified things." Aldric was already moving among the newly freed soldiers, his healing magic stabilizing those who'd been wounded while under the enchantment. His visage held no anger toward them, only compassion. The freed soldiers didn't need orders, which proved that they remembered everything. The ones who could still stand began disarming the actual traitors, the knights and soldiers who'd served Darius willingly.

In street after street, the real loyalists were identified, separated, and placed under guard by their own former comrades. It wasn't clean. There were shouts, accusations, more than a few fistfights between men who'd been on opposite sides minutes ago. But the real violence was over. The Count stood over his kneeling nephew, the Trident's light fading to a delicate glow. Darius didn't speak.

He stared at the sealed Tower gates, at the place where Calian had vanished, and whatever was left of his resistance disappeared in a second. Somewhere in the city, a bell began to ring. Then another. And another. The battle for Tidemark was over. And somewhere beyond those sealed gates, Calian walked into a dark portal with a smile on his face and plans that spanned far beyond a single county's throne.