Horvac cast his gaze across the council table and the map of the Lakharian Desert spinning on it, with markers for the undead army, its base and the temple of Tiamat.
The leader himself sat at the head of the table. Hinterleaf sat at the other end. On his right was Colonel from Excommunicado, the inseparable Joshua and Vivian from Children of Kratos, Glyph from Azure Dragons and Yagami from Mizaki, representing the Commonwealth’s interests.
On the other side were the Imperials: Nertagosh the ore vampire and leader of the Warsong clan; Mot ark the ogre from Zuldozer; and that thorn in Horvac’s side, the upstart girl Eileen, the dark elf from Widowmakers. Her young international clan stopped at nothing in the pursuit of new heights on the leaderboard.
Next to Eileen stood the leaders of two neutral clans: Adda the dryad from Sharp Blades and Fang the gnoll from Ferals. Adda, an elegant version of a centaur with a human head and torso on a deer’s body, needed no seat. Fang, friend and partner to the dryad, stood in solidarity. Many knew that they were in a relationship, although even with all that Horvac had seen, he struggled to imagine them together. The dryad with her large curved horns and the hyena-like gnoll with his ever lolling tongue and dribbling spittle… Horvac shook his head, chasing away unwanted scenes.
The lieutenants and strategists stood behind the leaders, and one of them, Sayan, a massive titan paladin, reported on behalf of Modus. Periodically glancing at Yary as if seeking his approval, Sayan announced the results of their intelligence operations and the analysts’ predictions. Once done, he added: “It should be considered fortuitous that the mages of the Elites failed to survive in the breakthrough to the temple of the Sleepers. Otherwise the event might as well be over; a portal would be open to all members of the Elite and the temple would be destroyed in mere hours…”
“Get to the point,” Hinterleaf hurried the strategist. “How much time do you have?”
“Twenty-six hours in the worst case, if Mogwai, Criterror and Dek won’t negotiate.”
A sigh of disappointment spread through the tent. A little more than twenty-four hours for all the troops of the Alliance to reach the temple was possible, but only on the condition that they had a clear path. First they had to fight through an army of undead, Deznafar and the Threat, who would be sure to get involved.
Elite’s departure from the Alliance was a surprise: no sooner had it joined than the young clan declared its exit. Just the kind of thing its eccentric leader would do. Of course, Fen Xiaoguang immediately declared a press conference in which he accused the Alliance of tunnel vision and blind trust in the management of two ’old crocks’: Hinterleaf and Horvac. In his speech, Fen promised that Elite wouldn’t ’fuck around’ and would have a surprise for everyone that very day. The speech took place in the evening, and at midnight Mogwai really did surprise everyone; he started a live stream from the walls of Tiamat’s temple.
“And we have only nine Armageddon scrolls for all of them,” Horvac said in annoyance. “It’s time to dig deep, colleagues. Who has what left? We have one target. Every script, every artifact could be the straw that breaks Deznafar’s back.”
“Damn Mogwai!” Yary spat. “He had two scrolls. But he decided to play his own game!”
“Losing in a straight fight against the Threat didn’t cheer him up,” Ada the dryad pointed out. Her voice, like all those of her race, sounded like singing. “I understand him. To be honest, if he’d invited me to go to the temple with him, I would have agreed without a moment’s thought.”
“Who would have doubted it,” Eileen snorted, leader of the Widowmakers. “Why don’t you just go to him? Both the Sharp Blades and the Ferals are useless anyway.”
“Watch your mouth, old crone!” the dryad screeched.
Horvac slammed a fist down on the table. The dryad and the dark elf girl exchanged hateful glances, but were quiet. Something has happened between the girls, Horvac thought. I need to find out what.
Raising his hands for calm, he spoke softly:
“Colleagues, let us put aside our squabbles. Right now we all have the same goal, and time is running out.” Horvac went into his inventory and pulled out an unprepossessing rounded stick. “The Wand of Dark Matter Spar’ks. It had only three charges. Two were spent on… Never mind, the point is I have one charge left. A hundred million pure damage. I suspect that should be enough for that damn lich.”
“And if it isn’t enough, that’s not all we have,” Glyph added, pulling out a small green orb around the size of a cherry. “Orcus’s Blood. A onetime artifact. I don’t know how much damage it deals, but it says: Destroys any enemy or structure.”
“Were you saving that for the temple?” Horvac guessed.
Glyph nodded darkly. The others shifted, glancing at him and Horvac.
“Marduk’s Second Chance,” Joshua declared, showing a silver disc encrusted with celestial diamonds. “Roughly speaking, it resurrects all allies across a whole zone. And they res in the same condition they had at the start of the fight, with all their buffs. Don’t ask me why I didn’t use it before. I didn’t want to waste it. The cooldown is a year.”
“We have Kala’s Advantage,” the ore vampire Nergatosh growled. “A onetime artifact, so we were saving it. It slows all enemies by fifty percent until they die or the battle ends.”
“Well now, I see we’ve woken up,” Hinterleaf spat bitterly. “If you all weren’t so greedy, we’d already be standing at the temple walls! What are you staring at? Modus gave up a divine artifact at the very beginning, remember? The altar we lost! And we invested more than anyone in the Armageddons, while you all hid your supplies! Come on, tell me what else there is so our analysts can start working on a strategy!”
The gray-haired
