Mortals get all the good stuff. Humans, elves, dwarves, the lot ... born with their own bodies, in which they run around the countryside making merry until the thing is ready to fall apart, then chuck it off in a mausoleum for us to pick through like yesterday's garbage. I can't remember the last time I had a body that wasn't losing skin and eyeballs, joints coming apart ... and the smell! Not that I really mind picking through humans' discards for a living - well, actually maybe I do - but nothing gets to me like those accursed elves!
Imagine the egoism of attempting to live - in the same body - forever. No graveyards, no tombs, nowhere for us - um, what's the word I want? "Evil" is so stigmatized - us fun-loving spirits to hitch a ride through the mortal world. I mean, "mortal," really! The word means "things that die!" Shouldn't elves have to die too? It's only fair.
That was the real reason I and my mates came rolling out of the Deadlands into the Shire of Darby that spring morning. I'd been riding around in a '63 human* with three cracked ribs and half the flesh gone, nobody I knew was in much better shape, and we just weren't going to take it anymore.
The elves had left only what they call a "skeleton" garrison. (Language, guys! Have a care for our feelings, why don't you?!) They weren't up to the task of greeting five thousand former mortals chanting "What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!"** and bravely ran screaming for help.
We closed in fast on Darbyshire Tower and the Village of Darby. Take those two points and the rest of the shire can rot. The Tomb King gained an early perch on the tower ramparts, and we brought our one dragon-body up behind it where it could wait in reserve for an attractive opening. By the time the first elven militia units came over the hillside, we were ready for them.
The elves had a dragon too - a live one - and it started laying into our cavalry with flaming breath. I hate getting assigned to cavalry, because it's even odds that I have to be the horse. Still, there's nothing quite as amusing as flaming, sizzling, rotten horseflesh scampering around a hamlet seeing how many roofs it can set on fire before the body's too burned to use. Just the smell ... sometimes you can make people hurl from fifty feet away.
More of our cavalry, flanked by the Sphinx, came tearing around the tower to rip up a column of archers before they got too close to the Tomb King. The Sphinx is a nice piece of hardware. A huge body, never living so it doesn't decay, hard as stone - heck, it is stone! It scrunches people pretty badly when it kills them, though, which is a waste of good bodies.
We saw the elven reserves from far off, coming down the Eastern road towards our right flank. We figured we had plenty of time to be ready for them.
We figured wrong. Their officer left the main body of troops behind to bring up his eagles for a flank strike on our archers. Eagles will eat any disgusting offal. I mean ... well, darn it, those are our bodies! Leave them alone!
Meanwhile, the Tomb King was unleasing some pretty horrific magics from the battlements. Whizzing shapes and colors flashed across the battlefield.
And the contest for Darby Village became dragon to dragon. The elves' dragon ally got the upper hand, ripping out chunks of ripe, putrid meat with his razor fangs. But pretty soon he had a look on his face like he was going to cry, scream, and hurl all at once, and after that it was a bit more even. Ain't it a bitch when something you're eating disagrees with you?
The Tomb King was keeping the lines steady, hooking a cordon around the front of the tower. The elves hit us, but they didn't move us.
The two dragons had ended up wrestling on the ground, and a mass of elven troops were headed in to make sure of which one won. But our cavalry - the ones that hadn't been set on fire - were able to get in the way.
I had pals in the right flank archers who were using '80+ humans and '120+ dwarves, and proud of them. Until the eagles came down and picked them apart. Did I mention that eagles are disgusting birds?
Even so, the right flank was holding steady. If it weren't for the reserves coming in from the East, we could have done a pinwheel and rolled the enemy right up. But no such luck.
The left flank, however, was pretty much stymied. The Sphinx was behind enemy lines and scrambling for safety, we'd had to pull back from the village because of the stupid dragon mess, and there were enough of the enemy to keep us where we were for some time.
