Chapter 100: The World Beyond
Banners covered the field.
Golden Axe recognized them even though the people beneath them had never gathered in one place before.
Fey occupied the left wing. Sigmund the satyr stood among redcaps, hybsils, dryads, and pale creatures Matthew had only glimpsed through the fog of Fey Nights. Fairies formed clouds of colored light above them. Fey hounds appeared and vanished through the ranks. At the center of the wing, an elder dryad rested one hand against the trunk of an enormous walking tree.
Orcs held the center beneath hide standards. Hunters from the Highlands stood beside arena warriors, beast masters, and work crews wearing armor over heavy leather. The Orc Chief towered above the front rank with his two-handed axe resting across one shoulder.
Dwarven airships shadowed the right side of the field. The Stonewing floated lowest, its repaired hull lined with ballistae and rune cannons. Captain Durna Ironwake stood on the forward deck shouting orders at riggers who moved with practiced speed. Beneath the ships, dwarven shield companies formed around mobile engines and armored supply wagons.
Elven riders occupied the open ground between the wings. Their horses wore light armor and carried bundles of long javelins. Captain Sylwen Aranor rode at their head beneath the Dawnhoof standard.
The people Golden Axe had fought, fled, assisted, and learned from during the first three levels were no longer obstacles.
They were now one army.
The shield-bearer stared across the formation. His armor had been fully restored, and his shield was whole. The tracker’s shoulder no longer bled. The mage flexed fingers filled with fresh mana. Even Matthew’s spear had returned.
Beyond the allied lines, the field turned gray.
Undead covered the opposite horizon.
They did not stand in one disordered mass. Skeleton infantry formed pale blocks around black-armored officers. Columns of corpses carried spears, axes, bows, and shields scavenged from a hundred forgotten armies. Bone beasts moved between them. Siege towers rolled without anyone pushing them, and enormous shapes dragged chains through the grass behind the front ranks.
The army extended so far in both directions that Matthew could not see its ends.
A system window appeared above the field.
[Final Trial]
[Living forces assembled.]
[Undead forces: More than 100,000.]
[Objective: Fight.]
There was no timer.
There was no promised reward for surviving.
The Orc Chief lifted his axe.
"THE WARDEN HAS JUDGED THEM WORTHY!"
His voice crossed the field. Thousands of living soldiers turned toward Golden Axe.
Matthew had stood before crowds in the Sanctuary and led an established guild through disasters. But he had never been examined by an army.
The elder dryad raised one wooden hand. "Then let them stand among the living."
Captain Durna leaned over the Stonewing’s railing. "They can stand wherever they keep out of my firing lines."
Captain Sylwen pointed her spear toward a gap in the central formation. "Golden Axe. With the reserve."
Matthew obeyed.
The party moved behind the first orc line, where they could see the front without blocking the dwarven engines. No one asked them to command. The allied army already possessed officers, signals, routes for supplies, and plans that had begun long before the party arrived.
Golden Axe was five more fighters in a war too large to understand.
The undead advanced. They came without drums or shouted orders. One moment the gray lines stood across the horizon. The next, the entire horizon moved.
Captain Durna’s hand fell. The dwarven airships fired together.
Runes flashed along their hulls. Heavy bolts crossed above the living army and struck the forward undead ranks. Explosions threw dirt and bone into the air. Dwarven engines on the ground answered with stones wrapped in burning wire.
The first barrage destroyed hundreds.
It did not create a visible gap.
Fairies rose above the fey wing and gathered into spiraling patterns. Their lights joined until false dawn spread across the left side of the field. The elder dryad pressed her hand against the walking tree.
Roots erupted beneath the approaching undead.
Entire formations collapsed as the ground rolled under them. Sigmund blew into a curved horn. Redcaps rushed into the broken lines while hybsil archers fired over their heads.
The elves waited.
Captain Sylwen watched the space between the undead blocks. When the first bone beasts surged ahead of their infantry, she lowered her spear. Thousands of horses accelerated together.
The Dawnhoof riders did not strike the center of the enemy. They passed between formations, released their javelins into exposed flanks, and turned before the surrounding ranks could close. Fey hounds appeared among them, carrying fey riders across distances no horse could cover.
The first clash reached the orcs.
The sound swallowed every other part of the battle.
The Orc Chief met an armored corpse twice his width and split its shield. Orc hunters pulled skeletal beasts down with hooked chains. Arena warriors rotated through the front, dragging wounded allies behind the line before the undead could climb over them.
For several minutes, the living army held.
It did more than hold. It destroyed everything that reached it.
Golden Axe remained with the reserve until Captain Sylwen’s riders turned back through the center. Undead cavalry followed them, mounted on horses made from lashed bone.
An orc horn sounded twice.
The reserve opened lanes for the elves to pass and closed them before the pursuing dead arrived.
Golden Axe took one of those lanes.
The shield-bearer joined two orcs at the front. Matthew and the tracker attacked across his shoulders. The mage broke the ground beneath the first rank of skeletal horses, turning the charge into a pile of bone and armor. The healer supported the entire section rather than preserving her magic for the party alone.
They did not count kills. The number would have meant nothing.
The lane held until the last elven horse passed through. Orcs closed around Golden Axe, and the allied line became whole again.
Then the undead archers arrived within range.
Their first volley darkened the sky.
Dwarven shield roofs rose over the right wing. Dryads bent branches above the fey. The orcs locked shields where they had them and trusted armor where they did not. Golden Axe’s mage raised an angled barrier over the nearest section.
Bone arrows struck like rain on a roof.
Some shattered. Some punched through. The barrier held for one volley and cracked beneath the second. The shield-bearer dragged an injured orc beneath it while the healer worked. Matthew pulled arrows from gaps in his armor without learning which had wounded him and which had only become trapped.
The third volley never arrived.
Captain Durna’s airships crossed above the center and fired into the undead bow lines. One vessel descended too far. Chains launched from a rolling siege tower, hooked its lower hull, and pulled it sideways.
Riggers cut three chains but the fourth tore through the balloon frame.
The airship fell behind the enemy front. Dwarves jumped from its deck before impact. Elven riders altered course without waiting for an order and raced toward the crash, but two more undead blocks closed around it.
The rescue vanished behind a wall of corpses.
The Stonewing climbed beyond the chains’ reach. Captain Durna did not turn away from the trapped crew. She redirected three rune cannons toward the encircling dead and opened a corridor with fire.
Captain Sylwen led the riders through it.
They emerged minutes later carrying survivors across spare horses. Fewer than half the dwarves who fell returned with them.
The living army cheered. The undead continued advancing.
Matthew finally understood the shape of the trial.
Every successful defense cost the living something that could not be replaced. Every destroyed undead formation revealed another behind it. The allied army could win a hundred moments and still lose the field.
A shadow passed over the center.
Skeletal creatures descended from the clouds. Some resembled wyverns stripped to bone and stitched together with black wire. Others carried swollen bodies beneath wings made from preserved skin. They dropped corpse soldiers into the rear ranks and attacked the dwarven airships from above.
Fairies rose to meet them.
The sky became a second battlefield.
Colored lights swarmed through ribs and empty skulls. Dwarven bolts tore wings apart. Falling bodies struck both armies. One skeletal wyvern crashed into the orc reserve and scattered the formation Golden Axe occupied.
Its broken wings continued moving. The creature dragged itself toward the healer with its jaws open. Matthew’s party reacted together. The shield-bearer caught the skull. The mage fixed one wing to the ground. The tracker attacked the black wire binding its spine, and Matthew drove his spear through the knot revealed beneath its ribs.
The wyvern collapsed.
Golden Axe had no time to recover its formation.
An undead siege beast reached the front.
It had been constructed from the bones of several giants, their rib cages fitted around a central frame of black metal. A tower rested on its back. Each step crushed bodies from both sides beneath feet wide enough to cover a wagon.
Dwarven engines changed targets. Stones and bolts broke ribs without slowing it. Fey roots wrapped its legs and were torn from the earth. The Orc Chief struck one ankle hard enough to split the outer bone, but the metal frame beneath remained intact.
The tower opened. Necromantic light swept across the orc line.
Living soldiers fell wherever it passed. Some vanished into dungeon light. Others remained long enough for the magic to drag their bodies upright again with gray eyes. When the living died, they rose again as part of the enemies army.
The healer shouted a warning.
Golden Axe moved behind a dwarven wagon as the beam crossed their position. The wood blackened. Every preservation rune on its side went dark.
"The frame." The mage said. "The bones are armor. The frame is holding it together."
Captain Durna’s crews had reached the same conclusion. The Stonewing banked hard and exposed its lower cannons. Dwarven ground teams fired grappling lines into the beast’s ribs and pulled them apart just enough to reveal the black structure inside.
The mage spent nearly half her restored power on one spell.
She did not attack the giant. She softened the earth beneath its damaged foot.
The Orc Chief struck the ankle again.
The siege beast tilted.
Elven riders crossed beneath the falling tower and threw rune-marked javelins into the exposed frame. The Stonewing fired.
The center of the construct exploded. Bones fell across the field like collapsing buildings.
The allied center survived.
Behind the wreckage, another siege beast emerged from the undead ranks. Then a third.
The cheers died.
The battle continued because stopping was the same as dying sooner.
The fey wing disappeared beneath gray bodies and reappeared when the walking tree tore a path through them. Fire spread through its branches. Fairies extinguished one section while undead sorcerers ignited another. The elder dryad remained at its base with roots buried in the blood-soaked ground.
On the right, two dwarven airships fell. The surviving vessels exhausted their heavy ammunition and descended low enough for crews to use hand weapons from the rails. Captain Durna drove the Stonewing between a skeletal flyer and a formation of dwarven infantry, accepting the collision rather than allowing the creature to reach the soldiers below.
The elves lost the open ground needed for another full charge. Captain Sylwen divided them into smaller groups that moved through gaps in the allied lines, reinforcing each section before it collapsed.
The Orc Chief’s hide standard fell and rose three times as its bearers were cut down. Each time, another orc seized the pole and raised the banner above the fighting, letting all know that the Orcs hadn’t fallen yet.
Golden Axe moved wherever the nearest horn sent the reserve.
They protected a group of wounded hybsils while their uninjured companions helped them move towards the rear. Fey hounds appeared and vanished around the group, intercepting undead that slipped past the allied line.
They helped dwarves turn an abandoned engine before the undead captured it.
They crossed a burning stretch of grass to support an orc line that no longer had enough shields.
Their victories became smaller.
Hold a path for one minute.
Keep a signal horn alive.
Destroy a necromancer before it raised the fallen.
Carry a wounded soldier ten more steps.
Each success saved someone. None changed the numbers across the field.
The allied flanks began bending backward.
Matthew saw it first from the slope beside a ruined siege engine. The fey and dwarven wings no longer formed a straight line with the orcs. They had been forced behind the center, turning the living army into a narrowing crescent.
The undead were surrounding them.
Captain Sylwen saw it too. Her horn gave three long notes.
The elves gathered for one final charge, not toward the enemy but along the inside of the allied line. They struck every place the undead threatened to close the circle. Horses fell. Riders continued on foot. Fey hounds carried messages when the distance became impassable.
The circle remained open for another ten minutes.
Then the walking tree fell.
Its burning trunk struck the field hard enough to send a wave through the earth. The elder dryad vanished beneath it. Fairies scattered from the collapsing branches, and the fey wing lost the living wall around which it had formed.
Undead poured through.
The tracker climbed onto the ruined engine for a clear view. "Left!" He shouted. "They’re behind us on the left!"
Golden Axe turned with the reserve.
The mage created a ridge of stone where no defensive line remained. Orcs, dwarves, and redcaps occupied it together. The shield-bearer held the lowest gap while Matthew moved wherever the ridge began to fail.
The tracker remained above them, directing arrows into officers and calling each new approach.
An undead archer formation stopped beyond the smoke.
Matthew saw their bows rise.
"Down!"
The tracker had nowhere to go.
He released one final arrow before the volley covered the engine.
His body vanished in pale light among the falling shafts.
Golden Axe became four.
The mage’s ridge broke at the center. She repaired it, lost it again, and drew stone from deeper beneath the field. Cracks spread around her feet. The effort slowed the dead long enough for two dwarven companies to withdraw, but a skeletal giant stepped over the ridge and brought a black hammer down.
The shield-bearer tried to reach her.
The healer pulled him back before the impact.
Stone erupted across the line. When the dust cleared, the mage was gone.
Golden Axe became three.
The allied formation no longer possessed a rear. Undead attacked from every direction. The Stonewing rested crooked on the ground with one side of its balloon frame burning. Captain Durna and her surviving crew fought beneath its hull. Captain Sylwen’s horse was gone. She stood among a shrinking ring of elves with a broken spear.
The Orc Chief still held the center.
Matthew, the shield-bearer, and the healer fought toward him because the hide standard remained the only landmark visible through the smoke.
They reached it with a dozen orcs and two redcaps behind them.
The healer had spent almost everything. She moved from one wounded defender to the next, using small spells because small spells could save more people than one final miracle.
A wave of cold passed through the circle.
Healing light went out across the field.
The undead sorcerer responsible stood somewhere beyond the bodies. Golden Axe never saw it. The healer staggered as the cold entered the spell she was casting and traveled back into her hands.
Matthew caught her.
She looked at the shield-bearer. "Keep him standing."
It was unclear which man she meant.
The healer dissolved into light.
Golden Axe became two.
The shield-bearer moved in front of Matthew.
His restored shield had accumulated more damage in an hour than Kildra dealt during their entire battle. Arrows filled the outer layer. One edge had melted. A crack ran from the center grip to the lower rim.
"You know this does not end with us standing." Matthew said.
"It never did. This was always a battle to the death.
The next undead surge struck.
The shield-bearer held because holding was the choice he had made long before reaching this field. Orcs fought beside him. A dwarf used the stump of a broken banner as a spear. One redcap climbed onto the shield and launched itself into the approaching dead.
The defense lasted seconds.
It felt longer.
The shield broke. The man behind it remained upright until three weapons reached him at once.
He disappeared without looking back.
Matthew stood alone beneath the hide standard.
Not alone, he realized. Never alone.
The Orc Chief remained a few steps away, his armor broken and his axe reduced to one jagged blade. Captain Sylwen reached the center with seven elves. Captain Durna emerged from the smoke carrying a dwarven hammer. Fey lights gathered above the survivors, fewer than stars at dawn.
All around them, the living army had become one final circle.
The undead covered the world beyond it.
The Orc Chief laughed. "WORTHY!" He roared.
The survivors charged.
Matthew went with them.
There was no gate to open, commander to reach, or hidden rule left to discover. The objective had told the truth.
Fight.
He broke his spear in the chest of the first grave soldier and used the remaining half against the next. Elven arrows passed above him. A dwarven hammer struck beside him. Fey light burned a path that closed as soon as it opened.
The last circle disappeared beneath the undead.
Matthew felt a blade enter his side. Another struck his back. His knees hit the trampled grass.
He expected the Sanctuary hospital.
The battlefield became white.
Matthew woke beneath a painted ceiling.
He lay in a stone alcove inside a vast church. Golden light entered through windows taller than the Sanctuary tavern. Rows of empty resurrection beds curved around a central altar, and bells sounded somewhere high above.
The shield-bearer sat up in the next alcove. The healer appeared beyond him. The mage and tracker were already staring at the unfamiliar room.
All five had returned.
No hospital gnomes came to examine them.
A human woman in white-and-green robes crossed the aisle. "Welcome, travelers. The western doors lead to the city. Food and water are available in the square."
Matthew swung his legs from the bed. "Where are we?"
The woman smiled as if the answer should be obvious. "Beyond the Last Threshold."
A system window appeared before Golden Axe.
[Level Five]
Nothing followed it. No suggested level. No list of encounters. No instance objective.
Matthew pushed open the western doors.
The church stood on a hill above a living city. Stone streets spread between crowded buildings and continued through open gates toward farms, villages, and distant roads. Rivers flashed beneath bridges. Forest covered one horizon. Mountains rose along another, so far away their peaks faded into blue.
People filled the square below. Wagons arrived beneath signs naming towns Golden Axe had never heard of. Smoke rose from workshops. Children chased one another around a fountain while merchants shouted over the bells.
"Um, Guild Leader. What exactly is going on?"