Sunset of Lantonne by Jim Galford

intermittent bounces of the room, which grew farther in-between with each pulse, Therec watched the magisters for any reaction at all. Aside from annoyance, they seemed entirely unbothered. None gave any indication that they knew it was coming, but they likewise were unconcerned.
    Therec waited until the last rumbles could be felt through the floor, though they had faded to the point that Therec would not have noticed them at all if they had not been preceded by the room-shaking quakes.
    “What was that?” He got up from his chair once he knew that he would not immediately fall down from the rocking. “Tell me that this tower is not so unstable…”
    “What it was is none of your business,” answered Kinet immediately. A glance toward the north windows did not go unnoticed by Therec. The man would give away anything through carelessness, making him Therec’s new favorite in these lands. “Military matters are between Dorus, the king, and the generals.”
    Therec got to his feet and headed straight toward the north window. He had not even reached it before he could see with certainty what had caused the shaking of the entire city.
    Standing tall above the plains, four massive metal statues appeared to be circling an area several miles north of Lantonne. All around the feet of the golems were thousands of moving shapes. Even at such a distance, the whispering tendrils of magic that encircled the metal figures told Therec with certainty what he was looking at. Magic that strong was difficult to miss by one trained to watch for it.
    “You brought in golems to fight the undead that serve Altis?” Therec asked incredulously. “Have you begun evacuations? Whether this works or not, there are at least ten thousand soldiers within marching distance of the city.”
    “No!” snapped Kinet, thumping a fist on the table. “We will stop them before they reach the city. They will not enter these walls. “I had this same argument with the king. The simple fact is that even if we tried, it was too late to get people out. We thought the golems could reach the army before they got to Lantonne, but…things did not work out as planned.”
    Dorus shook his head sadly as Therec looked back toward the table.
    “There are almost fifteen thousand…not ten,” he told Therec softly. “Our options are rather limited and we have been unable to keep them down for long. Luckily, I do not believe they have the numbers needed to breech the walls. At least not yet. The outer city will not be so fortunate. The magisters decided that some must be sacrificed to save the land.”
    Therec stared at the vast forces, amazed that the city of Altis could have mustered that many soldiers and gotten them so far south without being stopped. Shifting his vision to see magic, he searched the tiny specs for hints of wizards or other intelligence that might explain their successes, but for several minutes, the magic swirling around the golems made it difficult to make out anything else. Then, he began to see the threads of dark energy that he had worked with his whole life to preserve the ancestors in his clan. Seeing it on the field of battle made his stomach churn.
    “That army is undead,” he stated, more to himself than to the magisters.
    “Yes,” Arlind practically growled. “Altis has been slowly switching from a living army to a damned undead one. They’re using our own soldiers against us. You can’t spit without fighting someone you once knew.”
    Turessi had always kept groups of undead among each of their tribes, but he doubted that all the clans together could have fielded that many corpses. To see an uncivilized nation at war like this was beyond shocking. Therec began to understand why Turessi had been asked to come…they were likely the only nation for thousands of miles around that had a standing army of the undead and, thus, experience in dealing with them.
    “Was this really why I was brought here?” he asked, leaning on the