The Siege of the Emerald City Part 2

I swung my blade in a fierce arc, cutting down civilians and city guards alike. My hands erupted in flames as I summoned a flaming whirlwind that overtook my opponents. The pack of werewolves next to me were gutting enemies and delivering non-lethal bites. Within moments of being attacked, the people of the city would begin to change into the very beasts attacking their home. As my numbers ever grew, the city guard was diminishing rapidly. They were spread thinly among the city, with most trying to stay the attack on the walls.

Surprisingly, the walls were doing a good job of surviving the assault. I was certain they would crumple within moments, but they held fast against the army of beasts on the other side.

I quickly dispatched a guard that was attempting to stab me with his pike, and I looked up at the battlements. There were archers at each interval, each raining a hail of arrows on my army. If their aim was true on each shot, I was racking up a lot of casualties and it had to stop.

I turned and stabbed a civilian through the chest as he ran by me. As I pulled out my blade, I placed my hand on the fatal wound. Using my magic, I pulled the blood out of his body in a thick river of red. I molded the blood into a large pair of bat wings, and magically stuck them to the back of my breastplate, right at my shoulder blades.

With a couple hard flaps of my amorphous wings, I took to the air, flying towards the battlements. I landed, and stabbed my blade into the stone wall underneath me. The gem on the hilt began to glow and I twisted the blade, causing the wall to crumble beneath the soldiers. They lost their footing and many plummeted to their deaths off either side of the wall.

I pulled my blade out and flung my arms out on either side, sending blasts of fire out of my hands going down the wall on both sides of me. I heard screams of agony fill the air, even above the sounds of battle, as the guards burned to death. I flapped my wings and spiraled into the air, laughing maniacally to the tune of agonized screams.

I flew down the other side of the wall where my army was relentlessly trying to break through. They were making good progress, but it was taking too long. I raised my sword and charged it with magical energy. The gem began to glow, and grew brighter and brighter until it shone like a miniature sun. When I had charged enough power, I swung my sword towards the wall, blasting it with a massive shockwave of raw power. The wall exploded, sending huge pieces of rock flying in all directions into the city. My army below me cheered as they finally entered the city, weapons drawn and ready to join the battle. I flew over the wall and watched the carnage ensue.

The trolls were making use of the boulders from the wall and began throwing them, obliterating buildings and killing large groups of people. Braccus swung his giant axe, wounding or killing dozens of people with each strike. The city was burning, anarchy and dragon-fire causing a potent mix of destruction. I flew close to the ground, decapitating enemy soldiers or blasting the ground with magic. I made a sharp turn, flying higher into the air and scouting over the city.

Seeing the destruction was to my standards, I flew towards the castle gates and dropped to the ground. Veera and Gregoir were waiting for me, as we had planned. I disbanded my wings and let my armour change back into my clothes. I twirled my sword back into a cane and walked calmly towards the castle doors with a vicious smile on my face.

"Care to get the door?" I asked Gregoir.

"With pleasure," He replied with a wicked grin. He placed his hands against the door and closed his eyes. Within seconds, the giant wooden doors began to decay, spreading out from his hands until the entire entrance was a pile of rotting wood.

I smiled. "Thank you," I said, walking through the empty doorway.

We were met by a dozen guards, each of them wielding a six-foot spear. Veera immediately began firing arrows, taking a guard down with each hit. Before they had a chance to react, she had killed them all. I looked around at the fresh corpses, and then turned my gaze onto Gregoir.

"Seems a shame to leave such nice corpses here, don't you think?" I asked him.

"It does indeed," he replied. He raised his hands, with his palms facing up and pushed his hands up, willing new life into the bodies. They rose, like puppets on invisible strings and moaned, spewing black smoke from their mouths. I smiled even wider at the sight. "Perfect," I said happily.

After Veera pulled any salvageable arrows from the living corpses, we continued towards the throne room. Every few hallways we'd run into more guards, but we made short work of them. Gregoir continued to pour new life into the freshly deceased until we had a sizable company, at least four dozen undead. We received no further interference as we approached the throne room.

The doors were made of solid oak, at least a foot thick. "Want me to clear the path?" Gregoir asked me.

"No," I replied. "It would drain you far too much, and we need you to keep the undead animated. I'll handle this." I placed the tip of my cane against the large doors and focused. The wooden panels began to freeze over, a layer of ice covering the entire door. When the entire door had frozen, I slammed the tip of my cane against it, causing it to shatter into hundreds of chunks of shrapnel. I brushed slivers of ice off my coat as I walked into the throne room.

We were immediately attacked by dozens of guards. I dodged a sword and slammed the swordsman in the chest, sending him crashing through a window. I snapped my fingers, ordering the undead soldiers to attack. Veera was busy pegging off enemies one by one, while Gregoir was wielding his dark magic. The guard's armour and weapons rusted as they were wielding them, and Gregoir was causing their own bodies to decay as they tried to fight. The smell of rotten flesh soon filled the room and soldiers screamed as Gregoir summoned swarms of maggots to eat at their decaying bodies.

Through all the chaos, I spotted Glinda, attacking undead soldiers with her magic. She wasn't doing a very good job, though. Her magic was weaker than I had foreseen. I had no idea, but the warriors threatened to overwhelm her. I grabbed the hem of my coat and pulled it around me, teleporting across the room to her side. I twirled my cane into a sword and decapitated the four zombies in one swing.

I turned to look at her, her mouth open in shock at what I'd done.

"Don't get the wrong idea witch," I told her, brandishing my sword. "I want the honour of defeating you myself."

She sent a bolt of white lightning firing at me from her wand. I deflected it with my sword and slammed the blade into the ground, sending a shockwave through the ground. She stumbled, and fell against the throne. Before she could recover, I twirled my sword into a cane and fired a black bolt of energy at her. She dodged a second before it would've hit her and it hit the throne, causing a chunk of it to explode. As she fired another bolt of lightning at me, I tapped my cane against the ground, changing the stone underneath her into quicksand.

She sunk into the floor and I changed it back to stone, trapping her. She still held her wand however, and she fired bolt after bolt of magic at me with whatever strength she still had. I summoned a thin force field around me and the attacks bounced off. As the shield dissipated, I twirled my cane into a sword and walked towards her. Glinda attempted to fire another bolt of magic at me, but before she could I swung my sword, cleaving her hand right off her arm.

She screamed in pain as her arm began pouring blood. I watched the light dim from the wand before I kicked the hand across the room, the wand still gripped in its fingers. The gem on my sword began glowing as I heated up the blade of my sword. When it began glowing red, I pressed the flat of my blade against Glinda's bleeding wound, cauterizing the stump. She screamed even louder as the smell of cooking flesh mixed with the other scents in the air, but when I removed my blade the wound had stopped bleeding.

I looked around the room and saw that the fight was over. The soldiers were all dead, and Veera was pulling whatever salvageable arrows she could out of the corpses. I tapped my blade against the ground and changed it back into quicksand. I pulled Glinda out and she crumpled to the ground as I changed to solid stone. I turned to her and pressed the tip of my sword against her throat.

"Do you yield?"

She nodded weakly.

I twirled my sword into a cane and slammed it against the ground, causing a massive crack of thunder outside the castle. What sounded like thunder to anyone else, my army heard my voice.

"Glinda has surrendered. The city has fallen. Victory is ours."

I heard cheers coming from the battlefield as my troops learned of our victory. "Send for Ripper and his men," I told Veera and Gregoir. "Bring the assassins as well." They nodded and ran off. I looked at Glinda lying on the hard floor. She had finally lost consciousness. I smiled and sat down in the ruined throne.

"You said it couldn't be done Glinda," I whispered with a twisted grin. "But now, your precious city belongs to me."