“Where the fuck are these things coming from!” cursed Valena when another of her skeletons was destroyed, its bones scattered around the meadow.

The answer was obvious, not that it made any better to the necromancer. The group was heavily engaged with nearly a dozen of dwarf wooden golems that were a lot more durable than they had the right to be. It was a pain to hit their mana crystals, which held the magical fuel that powered the automatons. The crystals were placed randomly on the creatures, and everyone was having a hell of a time destroying them. Most were on the backside of the creatures, which meant that Maia’s bow was mostly useless. The archer had joined the melee, supporting her brother and Orwin.

“Yah!” shouted Orwin, piercing one of the golem’s chest after several hits to the same area had weakened it. He luckily cut off its magical fuel, the creature’s eyes, or the weird blue light that worked as them, fizzled out, and its movement stopped.

The front-liners, though, were mostly just holding the golems back. The one doing the real damage was Rajpul, using his agility to dart in between the crude and mechanical attacks of the creatures and hitting their crystals. The group was steadily cutting down the golems, but they were tiring while the machines couldn’t, ceaselessly trying to attack them. Valena’s skeletons, though armed with looted weapons to complement their looted bones, were a really bad match against the golems’ blunt-force attacks, using their arms. Mon target the joints with his spears, unbalancing and taking down the creatures, while Maia’s hatchet kept him from being flanked and overwhelmed.

Valena was even more frustrated because she couldn’t raise the damned golems back, as the creatures were never living to begin with, they couldn’t very well become undead. Maybe she could have bound a soul to one of them, letting it take control of the body, but that was something she preferred not to mess with. It was one of the reason’s necromancers had such a bad rep, after all. Besides, it was really annoying to prepare a soul-trap to hold the souls when they really wanted to depart for wherever souls went to. It smacked of cruelty too, in her opinion.

Everything was going alright, but in one of his attempts to go for the blindside of the golems, Rajpul was clocked by bad luck, and fell down stunned after the nasty hit. The group scrambled to get him back behind the lines, and Maia managed to drag him after the others distracted the automatons. After a long while, everything harder without Rajpul, they finished the last golem, and everyone released sighs of relief mixed with groans of exhaustion.

“How about we never do that again?” proposed Mons as he sat on the grass, sighing when he sat on a pointy bone fragment he then threw away. “Those skeletons are annoying, necro-lady,” He complained.

“Get used to them,” She shrugged as she looked over Rajpul. “You’ll join them in time.”

“Gah…”

There wasn’t much Valena could do for the rogue now. He was still dazed, his eyes a bit unfocused and not really steady at his feet. Only time would heal a concussion such as that one, she knew from experience.

“I hate these damned things I can’t take down with arrows,” Maia griped too.

“Well, it wasn’t me who created those damned things.” replied Orwin, shaking his bald head.

They could already see their objective, the enormous Spire, when they had camped the other night. But they had never imagined it would be so difficult getting closer to it. First it had been one or two errant golems, but the number had grown steadily until they had had a hard time dealing with all the automatons.

“Are you sure the wizard came here?” asked Rajpul, a rare tone of anxiety on his voice.

“Yeah, the message was quite clear on the directions,” replied Orwin.

“Chief doesn’t leave anything to chance in this kind of situation,” confirmed Maia.

“Of course he would invite us to this kind of shitty situation,” grumbled Mons.

“What did you say, boy?” a new voice shook the group out of their conversation. Their exhaustion had made them careless, and they never noticed the group approaching them from behind. And who, but Chief himself was standing behind Mons as he complained.

“Er..Ah..” mumbled the fair-headed warrior.

“Chief!” exclaimed Orwin and Maia, getting up on their feet and smiling at the old warhorse.

***

There was no hugging - Chief didn’t care for that, but everyone shook hands and smiled. The warriors also finally met their new employer, Master Garner, and his people.

“So, you’re the ones Chief told me about… I thought there were only three of you, though?” asked Garner, counting the five of them - Rajpul was still a bit out of it and had to lay down for a bit.

“Yeah, but I’ve picked some strays,” said Orwin, grinning at the elbow he expected, and received, to his side. Valena gave him an evil eye because of the comment - and because she had forgotten about his breastplate. “Sorry, I tend to do that. The one out of it is Rajpul, we don’t actually quite know a lot about him, but he’s helped us a lot so far. This feisty one is…”

“Valena,” She said. “I can introduce myself, Orwin, thank you. I’m a former medical student… and a necromancer,” Valena said, watching for the reactions of the wizard.

“I see,” said Garner, looking into her eyes, and seemingly trying to figure her out.

“It’s okay, girl,” said Lowa, not without kindness, “I know your kind rarely are like they they say you are.”

Valena nodded her thanks to the wise witch.

“We picked her up in Green Knoll, when the Lotharians were coming for Arburgh. We had to get her out of there in a hurry, and they followed us, but we dealt with it,” Orwin told the resume of their journey to their audience, the two mages, Chief and the apprentices.

“Damn the Lotharians. This will be war if it carries on like this…” commented Chief.

“Yes, my Order was caught by surprise, and they are on the back foot, but they will mount a response,” agreed Garner. “Are you okay with joining this kind of fight?” he asked of the new additions to his party.

“We are, we knew what we were going into. It wouldn’t be our first war,” replied Orwin.

“I don’t see that I’ve got many choices, they are coming for us all by the look of it, not only wizards.”

“Maybe. It was probably better you didn’t stuck around to learn if that’s the case,” replied the old witch. “There are quite a few practitioners coming here, and we can make the Spire a stronghold to the mages’ cause.”

“If we can reach that thing, that is,” added Orwin sourly, turning to glare at the big tower on the horizon.”

“We were warned it might not be simple… Let’s set your man on one of the carts, and talk about how we’re going to deal with this situation…”

***

“Damn, that boy is fine looking,” commented Maia, looking Tealdin over as their leaders talked.

“Damn says I, Maia, you barely met the guy! And he must be like, ten years old or something,” complained her brother. Tealdin was, in fact, seventeen years old, while Leanor was fifteen.

“You’re just jealous, Mons. No way he’s more than three years younger than us,” She pointed out. The siblings had joined the Army at the minimum age required of fifteen years, and had already seen and done a lot of things in the four years since that most people would pale to imagine. They were, however, still young and immature - Mons specially. Orwin, quite a bit older, worked a bit like the father they never had. The twins had left behind them one crowded and strict orphanage and never had looked back.

“Hey, Maia… Will we really have to swear a vow to this Garner fella?”

“That’s usually how it works. We vow our service, and get a home, food and laundry for the duration, besides some good money.”

“A home…” He mumbled, savoring that strange notion. They had never had a true home. The orphanage had been more like a prison, and the Army like a temporary thing, an inn where you had to pay you stay with back-breaking work and possible bowel-loosening fights, with vomit-inducing gore at the end of it. How would a true home feel like? Less shitting-yourself scared, and puking-your-guts-out disgusted, he would bet.

***

“Look, Tealdin. There’s the Spire, finally!” said Leanor, unusually excited.

“Yeah, I didn’t imagined the top would be crooked like that,” He commented, observing the beautiful stone that made the Spire’s exterior a radiating blue. It was surprising that something so beautiful had been made in a time of war, he expected a drab gray exterior, as harsh as a fortress’ fortification.

“Oh, it’s probably ‘crooked’ to focus the ritual. I think every Spire must point to the same place.” The blonde girl reasoned.

“How tall do you think it is?”

“Very tall, it probably has many floors. But you know Towers can be really weird inside.”

“Yeah, space where there shouldn’t be any… Many surprising features inside.”

“My family’s Tower was the best! In the underground there was a grotto with a little lake on it. Me and my sisters loved to dip…”

“That’s so cool. Master’s Tower was pretty simple, though…”

“He didn’t have much time to build the really cool stuff.”

The pair kept chatting as the strategy meeting was happening, and for once they didn’t feel the need to join in, letting their imaginations soar on what Garner’s Tower could have been, and what the Spire’s floors would be like. It was a nice moment of bonding between the apprentices. But soon, the tactics for the upcoming fights to reach the Spire were defined, and most of the group’s combatants started heading further towards the imposing Spire.

***

Garner, Lowa, the apprentices, Chief and Orwin’s group, minus the knocked out Rajpul and the ineffective Valena - whose eyes sparkled when she saw the carcass of the magical boar, were the ones they decided would clear the way to the Spire of the aggressive golems. The hunters and the other four avowed warriors stood behind, looking over the carts and the non-combatants, with orders to retreat and call for help in case of attack. Romer made sure to give every one going out a little sandwich or snack, as well as a full water-skin or canteen. The majordomo also promised that lanch would be ready when they got back, barring any special circumstance. By Orwin’s smile, Garner figured the man could get used to that kind of efficiency.

They formed up on the agreed positions, the four warriors ahead and mages behind. Not an amazing revolution that would rock the tactical world, that was sure. It was tried and true. But they agreed on organizing in two independent halves that could separate themselves if a fight called for it. The meadow they were on was mostly clear of trees, but the rest of the path to the Spire was covered with foliage and high grasses occulting possible aggressive automatons. They would just have to deal with it.

“Let’s go, people. We’ve got some animated pieces of shit do decommission!” declared Chief after receiving a nod from Garner. You just had to admit the man had a way with words, a true battlefield poet, a roving warrior-bard. Garner shook his head at the thoughts. He did really believe they wouldn’t face anything that could stop them, but he decided to take captain Lamart’s warning to heart and proceed cautiously.

It didn’t take long before they found their first opponents, some strange ceramic golems with three arms and three legs, horribly unbalanced. The warriors took care of it quick and efficiently, and Garner made sure to pay attention to the newcomers he was contemplating making a pact with. It wasn’t impossible to break a pact if things went sour between a wizard and an avowed warrior, but it was pretty painful and debilitating. It was an ancient spell, created by wizard prodigies we would have loved to meet an equal of. But everyone said they didn’t make it like them, anymore.

“That was easy!” said Mons, gleefully.

“You dumb fuck!” exclaimed his sister, punching him in the shoulder for jinxing the whole task.

“Are you two sure that that one hasn’t a couple dozen screws loose in that head of his?” he asked skeptically.

“No comment,” said Chief, shaking his head.

“Yeah, but you won’t find anyone more loyal once you earn it, Master Garner. They are good warriors,” promised Orwin confidently.

“Forward,” commanded Chief after everyone had a moment to study the deactivated golems.

Things just got weirder and more dangerous from then on…