The undead giants moved with a lumbering grace that belied their massive size, each footfall shaking the earth as they advanced toward Task Force Valkyrie's position at the edge of the Twilight Grove. Captain Alastair Reid crouched behind a fallen tree trunk, quickly assessing their dire situation. The giants—fifteen feet tall and stitched together from rotting flesh and earth—formed the vanguard of Seraphine's forces, with smaller undead warriors flowing around them like water around stones.
"Well," Reid muttered to Williams, who was checking his rifle beside him, "I've always wanted to add 'fought undead giants' to my CV. Looks like today's the day."
Williams snorted. "Right next to 'survived dragons' and 'argued with elves.' Your LinkedIn profile must be fascinating."
Reid allowed himself a grim smile before turning serious again. "Rally the troops. Defensive positions. Heavy weapons on the giants, small arms on the foot soldiers. And someone wake up Maeve—we need her magic more than ever."
As Williams crawled away to relay orders, Reid surveyed their makeshift battleline. They had perhaps fifty combat-effective soldiers from Task Force Valkyrie, plus thirty elven warriors from Thaelon's group. Against them stood at least a dozen giants and several hundred undead knights—the odds were not in their favor.
Singh appeared at his side, her medical kit slung over one shoulder and a determined expression on her face. "Triage station is set up behind that ridge," she reported. "But honestly, sir, if those things break through, we won't have time for medical care."
"Then we don't let them break through," Reid replied simply.
Dr. Whitaker scrambled over to them, clutching what appeared to be a hastily assembled device cobbled together from scientific equipment and elven artifacts. Her eyes were bright with the feverish excitement that always appeared when she was on the verge of a breakthrough—or a breakdown.
"Captain! I think I've got it!" She thrust the contraption toward him. It hummed with an unsettling vibration, and blue-white energy pulsed along its surface in patterns that matched the ley-lines beneath their feet.
"Got what, exactly?" Reid asked, eyeing the device warily.
"A ley-line disruptor!" Whitaker explained, her words tumbling out in a rush. "Based on my observations of how the undead interact with corrupted ley-lines, I believe this device can temporarily sever their connection to the magical energy animating them. It won't kill them outright, but it should weaken them significantly."
"Should?" Reid raised an eyebrow.
"Science is about probabilities, Captain, not certainties," Whitaker replied with a touch of academic haughtiness. "But the theoretical framework is sound."
"How close do we need to get for this thing to work?"
Whitaker's enthusiasm dimmed slightly. "Ah. That's the catch. Within fifty meters, ideally."
Reid stared at her. "You want us to get within fifty meters of those giants?"
"I didn't say it would be easy," she admitted.
Before Reid could respond, Maeve appeared beside them, supported by Thaelon. The druidess looked pale but determined, her green eyes fixed on the approaching undead army.
"The Lady of Thorns sends her best warriors," she observed quietly. "She must fear what we might accomplish."
"Or she just really wants us dead," Reid countered pragmatically. "Can you help us, Maeve? We're outnumbered and outmatched."
Maeve studied the battlefield, her gaze distant as if seeing beyond the physical realm. "The Grove remembers what it once was, before Seraphine's corruption. I can call to that memory, summon the spirits that once protected this place." She hesitated. "But doing so will drain me. And there is no guarantee they will answer."
"Seems to be the theme of the day," Reid muttered. "No guarantees, just desperate gambles."
He made his decision quickly—they had no time for deliberation. "Whitaker, you and Singh take a small team to deploy that disruptor thing. Target the largest giant—if we can bring that one down, it might disrupt their advance. Maeve, do whatever druidic magic you can muster. Thaelon, position your archers on our flanks—those undead knights will try to encircle us."
As they dispersed to their positions, Reid moved along the defensive line, offering encouragement and instructions to his troops. Many looked terrified—and who could blame them? They had signed up to fight insurgents and terrorists, not mythological monsters from another dimension.
"I know this isn't what any of you trained for," Reid addressed them, his voice carrying across the line. "But remember—these things may look frightening, but they're just puppets. Cut their strings, and they fall. We have the weapons, the knowledge, and something they don't—a reason to fight. We're protecting two worlds today. So let's show Seraphine what happens when she messes with Task Force Valkyrie."
A ragged cheer went up from the soldiers, bolstering their courage if not their odds. Reid took position at the center of the line, rifle ready, as the first wave of undead knights reached the edge of their defensive perimeter.
"Open fire!" he ordered.
The battlefield erupted with the staccato rhythm of automatic weapons fire. Bullets tore through the front ranks of undead knights, shredding rotting flesh and shattering ancient armor. But for every one that fell, two more shambled forward, their eyes glowing with the sickly green light of corrupted ley-line energy.
On the flanks, Thaelon's elven archers released volley after volley of arrows that glowed with blue-white energy—enchanted somehow to target the magical bonds animating the undead. Where these arrows struck, the undead didn't just fall; they collapsed as if their very essence had been severed.
"We need more of those arrows," Reid muttered to Williams, who was firing controlled bursts at approaching knights.
"I'll just pop down to the magical arrow shop, shall I?" Williams replied dryly, ejecting a spent magazine and slamming in a fresh one. "Maybe they're having a sale."
Meanwhile, Whitaker's team was attempting to maneuver the ley-line disruptor into position, using the chaos of battle as cover. Singh led the way, her medical training temporarily set aside in favor of combat skills learned during her Royal Marine training. They darted from cover to cover, drawing closer to the largest giant, which was now only a hundred meters away and closing fast.
At the rear of their position, Maeve had begun a ritual unlike anything Reid had ever witnessed. The druidess knelt, her hands pressed against the earth, chanting in that crystalline language that seemed to resonate with the very air around them. The ley-line markings on her skin glowed with increasing intensity, and the ground beneath her began to pulse with answering light.
"The Grove remembers," she whispered, her voice somehow carrying over the din of battle. "The Grove remembers what it was before the corruption. Spirits of root and branch, of leaf and thorn, I call you to defend your ancient home."
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the earth itself seemed to respond. Trees at the edge of the Twilight Grove began to sway, though no wind blew. Roots erupted from the ground, snaking toward the undead forces and entangling their feet. Vines and branches reached out like living whips, lashing at the giants and impeding their advance.
And then, more remarkably, shapes began to coalesce from the very air—nature spirits taking physical form. They resembled elves but were more elemental, their bodies composed of bark and leaf, vine and thorn. They moved with incredible speed, darting among the undead and tearing them apart with wooden claws and thorny appendages.
"Bloody hell," Williams breathed beside Reid. "Are those—"
"Dryads," Thaelon supplied, notching another arrow. "Guardians of the Grove. I had thought them all destroyed by Seraphine centuries ago."
"Apparently not," Reid replied, watching in awe as the nature spirits tore through the undead ranks with savage efficiency.
The tide of battle was shifting, but the giants remained a formidable threat. One of them had broken through the line of dryads and was bearing down on Reid's position, each step shaking the earth. It raised a massive fist, ready to crush the humans before it.
"Whitaker!" Reid shouted into his radio. "Now would be a good time for that disruptor!"
"Working on it!" came her strained reply. "Just need... thirty more seconds!"
"We don't have thirty seconds!" Reid fired at the giant's face, the bullets doing little more than annoying it. "Fall back! Defensive positions!"
His soldiers scrambled to retreat as the giant's fist came crashing down, missing them by inches but sending a shockwave through the earth that knocked several off their feet. Reid helped a young private up, dragging him toward cover as the giant prepared for another attack.
Just then, a blinding flash of blue-white energy erupted from somewhere to their right. The ley-line disruptor had activated, sending a pulse of energy that rippled across the battlefield. The effect on the undead was immediate and dramatic. The giants staggered, their movements becoming jerky and uncoordinated. The smaller undead knights collapsed in droves, the magical bonds animating them temporarily severed.
"Now!" Reid shouted. "Concentrate fire on the giants while they're vulnerable!"
Task Force Valkyrie unleashed everything they had—rifles, grenade launchers, even a few shoulder-mounted rockets that someone had been saving for a special occasion. The giants, weakened by the disruptor's effect, began to fall one by one, their massive bodies crashing to the earth with ground-shaking impact.
The elven archers, seeing the opportunity, focused their enchanted arrows on the largest remaining giant. The glowing projectiles struck true, severing the corrupted ley-line energy that animated it. The monster collapsed in a heap of rotting flesh and earth, its green eyes going dark.
For a moment, it seemed victory was within reach. Then a horn sounded from the rear of Seraphine's forces, and the undead began a coordinated retreat—something Reid hadn't thought them capable of.
"They're pulling back," Williams observed, lowering his rifle slightly. "Did we win?"
"No," Maeve's voice came from behind them, weak but clear. "Seraphine recalls her forces. She has learned what she needed from this encounter."
Reid turned to find the druidess being supported by Singh. Maeve looked utterly drained, her skin pale and the ley-line markings barely visible now. The nature spirits she had summoned were already fading, returning to whatever realm they had come from.
"What do you mean, 'learned what she needed'?" Reid asked, a sense of foreboding settling in his gut.
"She was testing us," Maeve replied, her eyes drifting closed with exhaustion. "Testing our defenses, our capabilities. This was not a true attack, merely... reconnaissance."
Reid surveyed the battlefield. Despite their apparent victory, the cost had been high. At least a dozen Valkyrie soldiers lay dead or severely wounded. The elves had fared better, but even they had suffered casualties. And for what? A skirmish that wasn't even meant to defeat them?
Whitaker approached, her ley-line disruptor now dark and silent in her arms. "It worked!" she announced proudly, then faltered as she noticed the grim expressions around her. "What? What did I miss?"
"Apparently, we just participated in Seraphine's field test," Reid explained bitterly. "She wanted to see what we're capable of."
"Oh." Whitaker's enthusiasm deflated. "Well, at least now she knows not to underestimate us, right?"
"Or she knows exactly what she's up against and is already planning countermeasures," Reid countered.
Singh had begun organizing medical teams to treat the wounded, her efficiency undiminished by the battle they'd just endured. "We have eight dead, fifteen wounded," she reported. "Four critically. We need to get them back to Avalon as soon as possible."
Reid nodded, the weight of command settling heavily on his shoulders. Every death was his responsibility—a burden he had carried since his first command in Afghanistan, and one that never got lighter.
"Prepare to move out," he ordered. "Williams, organize a rear guard. I don't want any surprises if those undead decide to come back."
As the survivors gathered their wounded and prepared to depart, Thaelon approached Reid. The elven leader's silver-white hair was matted with dirt and what might have been blood, but he carried himself with undiminished dignity.
"Your soldiers fought well," Thaelon said, offering what appeared to be a gesture of respect—a closed fist pressed to his heart. "Many of them had doubted the worth of fighting alongside elves. I believe those doubts have been... reconsidered."
Reid glanced around and noticed something he had missed in the chaos of battle—human soldiers and elven warriors working side by side to tend the wounded and secure the perimeter. There was still wariness, but the open hostility that had marked their earlier interactions had faded.
"Nothing like a common enemy to forge unlikely alliances," Reid observed.
"Indeed." Thaelon's luminescent eyes studied Reid thoughtfully. "You lead well, Captain of Earth. Your people follow you not from fear but from respect. That is rare in any world."
Before Reid could respond, Maeve stirred in Singh's arms, her eyes fluttering open. "We must press on," she insisted weakly. "Seraphine grows stronger with each passing day. The ley-lines near her stronghold pulse with corrupted energy. If we delay too long..."
"We'll get there," Reid assured her. "But first, we need to tend our wounded and regroup. Even heroes need to catch their breath sometimes."
Maeve didn't look convinced, but she was too exhausted to argue. As Singh led her away to rest, Reid turned his attention back to the battlefield. The undead had vanished back into the mists surrounding the Twilight Grove, but he could still feel their presence—a lingering corruption that seemed to seep into the very air.
They had won this battle, but at a cost. And if Maeve was right, Seraphine was just getting started. The true test still lay ahead, at her stronghold in the heart of the corrupted ley-lines.
Reid checked his weapon, a habit born from years of combat experience. "Onward, then," he murmured to himself. "Into the heart of darkness."
Behind him, the Twilight Grove seemed to whisper in response, its ancient trees swaying gently as if in warning of what was yet to come.