Path of the Necromancer Book 1 (A LootRPG Series)

by Deck Davis

  Rud stopped.

  “He’s bullshitting,” said Jakub. He grabbed Rud’s sleeve, but the boy twisted away from him.

  Then, from the sound of his voice, Jakub knew the boy was looking up.

  “You knew my dad?”

  The demon laughed. “No,” he said, and let out a cackle. “But you have that dead-dad look about you. Spare another thought?”

  Rud stumbled back. “He’s in my head.”

  “Yeah, I warned you about that. Time you started listening to me. Come on, Ryden is getting closer.”

  “Leaving so soon? We’ve hardly become acquainted,” said one demon.

  “Follow. Follow. Follow,” said another.

  54

  They pushed on through the Greylands, ignoring the demons and imps and focusing only on the ground in front of them, one step after another, until finally Ludwig’s dot was larger on Jakub’s map. After skirting a stream of essence and walking up a hill and down the other side, they saw him.

  Ludwig was impaled on an ivory spike. The spike had cut through his waist, wedging Ludwig deep on it.

  Jakub felt like his heart had exploded; that the sight of his best friend like this had seeped a corruption deep inside him, and that it was snaking through his body and destroying everything he touched.

  He was dead. His best friend, gone.

  His stomach bubbled. He collapsed to his knees and tried to vomit, but nothing would come. Tears stung the edges of his eyes, and he didn’t even try to hold them back.

  A thought cast light in his mind. One, tiny little thought that was enough to get him back to his feet.

  Ludwig had shown on his map. If he were dead, that wouldn’t happen.

  Ludwig was alive.

  While nothing on the physical world could hurt him, the Greylands were Ludwig’s home, and the things down here were real to him. They could touch him, hurt him.

  Most Greylands dwellers lived in a state of coexistence, tolerating the presence of the other dead souls even if they didn’t like each other. With no soul essence in their bodies, they had nothing to gain from hurting each other.

  So who had done this to him? Who could have done it?

  It didn’t matter.

  Jakub ran over to his friend. He sensed the specter of arachnids in the distance, way beyond his friend but in view enough that Jakub had to get so close to Ludwig that he blocked the distance from his sight.

  Only then did he risk another, longer look at his friend, and he stared into his furry face, into his eyes that seemed almost lifeless now.

  “Jakub…” said Ludwig.

  There was a smacking sound as he spoke, made by his dry lips. Jakub felt his breath on his face, but it was cold.

  “Hold on, Ludwig,” he said.

  Hearing his friend speak sparked a new feeling in him. He cast everything else away; the shock at seeing him like this, his fear of the Greylands itself.

  He could do something. On the surface, his spells wouldn’t work on Ludwig. But down here…

  “We need to get him off the spike,” he said.

  Rud, now well-trained in Greylands travel it seemed, had cupped his hands tight around his eyes, and was looking at Ludwig through the little window he’d made.

  “This is your dog?”

  “This is Ludwig. Introductions later; we need to help him first.”

  “I think he’s gone. I’m sorry.”

  “If this happened to Chaser, would you just leave her? Let her die?”

  Rud seemed to think about something now, as if he was remembering something.

  “What do we need to do?”

  Jakub passed Rud his vagrant blade, and he held his own blackened blade in his hand.

  Then he cast his map on the ground.

  “Ryden’s five minutes away at the most. Come on.”

  As Rud held the vagrant blade, his clothes began to change. His leather jerkin was dotted with tears and smothered in food stains. Hair sprouted on his cheeks, and his skin withered and aged. His fingers became long, crooked, and marred by tobacco stains.

  “What’s happening to me?” he said, and dropped the blade.

  “Pick it up. It’s magic. I showed you, remember? The effect isn’t permanent.”

  Rud crossed his arms. “I don’t know about this.”

  “Pick up the god damn sword,” said Jakub, putting all his weight into his voice.

  Rud picked it up.

  Jakub pointed his sword at the middle of the ivory spike, just above Ludwig.

  “Hit it here, where it starts to thin. If we snap off the top, I can pull him free.”

  “Jakub…” groaned Ludwig.

  Jakub stroked his friend’s nose. “Hush, Lud. I’ll fix you. Don’t strain yourself.”

  His chest tightened then, and grief threatened to well in him. How long had Ludwig been suffering like this? A day? More? It made him sick.

  He raised his sword and hacked at the ivory spike. Flecks of it chipped away, and one hit Jakub in the face.

  He hit it again, and Ludwig groaned.

  “I’m sorry if this hurts, but it’s the only way. Rud – help me.”

  Vagrant Rud joined him now, and the two took turns hacking at the spike. One sword then another, each blow making the spike tremor, each hack sending shards of ivory flying. It began to wither away like a tree trunk pulverized by a lumberjack’s axe.

  As Jakub started to tire and each swing came heavier than the last, the shard of spike above Ludwig fell to the ground.

  “He’s coming…” said a voice, with a hint of mockery.

  “Demons again,” said Jakub. “Ignore them.”

  “The necromancer is coming. He looks mad.”

  Ignoring them, Jakub carefully took hold of Ludwig and lifted him off the spike, and then set him on the ground.

  It was then that Jakub realized something; Ludwig’s form was real down here.

  For the first time since he had come here to bind himself to Ludwig years ago, Jakub hugged his best friend. He wished they had more time.

  Breaking away, he cast his map along the ground.

  “We’ve got a minute, maybe.”

  “What? Shouldn’t we run?”

  “He’ll catch us. This is the only way.”

  Jakub spoke the spellword of Healing Harvest, sending essence from his necklace into Ludwig.

  It sparked over his body, filling the hole where the spike had been and casting a webbing of blue over the gap. Ludwig’s flesh – which looked real down here, and not spectral – began to knit together cell by cell, his inside reforming, his skin stretching.

  Jakub heard footsteps behind him. Heavy ones, not the tread of a demon.

  “It’s better that you stopped running,” said a voice.

  “Ryden,” said Rud.

  Ludwig stirred. He blinked, and tears pooled at the edges of his eyes. He coughed, stumbled to the ground. Then he got up again.

  The footsteps got closer.

  “Can you get us out of here, Lud?”

  “Cast your Summon spell at the sky, and hold onto me.”

  Jakub nodded. “Rud, grab Chaser and get here. Hold onto Ludwig.”

  As he went to say the spellword, he felt a hand grab his shoulder.

  He swung the hilt of his sword, smashing Ryden in the face. The necromancer fell onto his back.

  It was then that he locked eyes with a demon. He felt its stare bore deep into him, and he could feel it scratching through his thoughts and trying to grab one to latch onto and take from him.

  “Ha! Got one!” said the demon.

  He couldn’t stop it. The demon wrenched something from his mind, but he didn’t know what it was.

  A thought, a memory, some knowledge; he didn’t know.

  He could feel its absence.

  “Mineeeee,” said the demon, smiling.

  With great effort, he broke his stare and turned away.

  Jakub held Ludwig’s paw and spoke his spellword, directing it at the sky a
bove them. The portal opened, and the swirl of light far above reached out to them, enveloping them in its rush and taking them out of the Greylands.

  55

  They lurched so violently into the world of the living that a rush of dizziness hit him. Jakub released his grip on Ludwig and tried to stand, but his legs buckled, and he hit the ground.

  His stomach tightened. He retched but again, nothing would come. Rud, on the other hand, emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground.

  Chaser barked at his master, while Ludwig, his form spectral again, tried to nuzzle Jakub but his nose passed straight through him.

  He sat while he waited for the nausea to leave him, and it was only when the vice grip in his stomach eased that he could look around.

  They were back in the Killeshi lands again, in the middle of a field of thornweeds. Night had broken and the sun was starting its ascent, and the chatter of birds met his ears.

  He’d never felt as weary in his life. How long had it been since he’d slept now? Days?

  He needed to be stronger than this. He wished he was, but his body was human, and it had weaknesses and needs.

  If he couldn’t be stronger on his own, he’d have to use magic.

  He took the bracelet of rest from his inventory bag and slipped it on, and the ebbing of fatigue left him instantly.

  Thank the gods that I took the time to loot.

  “I want to go home,” said Rud.

  “Back to the hamlet? After what you said? You know what they’re going to make you do.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “About what? I didn’t tell you anything that wasn’t true.”

  “You didn’t tell me where we’d be going. That place…those things. You should have warned me. I can still feel that place inside me, like fucking poison in my soul.”

  “We should never have gone there, but there was no choice. What did you think would happen if we’d stayed in the hamlet?”

  “To me?” said Rud. “Nothing. They’re my family.”

  “You’re not thinking straight. Your initiation was a few days away, and you know what they were going to make you do.”

  “If eating a hunk of dead meat was what it took, I should have done it. I left everything behind. I left Florence with them.”

  “They’re going to use Florence to draw you back to them. You need to be stronger, Rud. Get a grip on yourself. You didn’t want to become like them, and everything that’s happened doesn’t change that. You’ve seen what they do when they eat the dead, haven’t you? You were scared of it.”

  “I shouldn’t have left her.”

  “We’ll find a way to get to Florence, but I need to work things out. Can you just give me the time to do that before deciding anything?”

  Rud nodded. “I know you’re right in what you say, but she’s going to think I just left her.”

  Jakub felt terrible. He knew that the kid was right; Jakub had drawn him into a world he should never have been a part of, and made him see things that he shouldn’t.

  Sure, there was only a couple years age gap between them, but Jakub had spent years studying and training for this kind of thing. Even then the Greylands had gotten to him, and the demon he’d locked eyes with had wrenched a thought from his mind.

  What that thought was, he didn’t know. He’d studied the Greylands in class, and he knew why it was so dangerous there; the beings that existed could take things from a mortal. That was why, when he’d gone there to become binded to Ludwig, Instructor Irvine and Madam Lolo had accompanied him, and they’d used their magic to shield his thoughts from the spirits that would take them.

  He should never have gone back unprepared and without a master to guide him, but there had been no choice.

  If he’d lost something of himself, he’d live with it, if he ever realized what that something was.

  Knowledge, a memory, who knew? How could you miss something that had been taken from you, making it like it never existed in the first place?

  There was nothing to gain by dwelling on it, nor through feeling guilt toward Rud.

  Instead, he focused on Ludwig. His demonic hound was back in his spectral form now. Chaser was sniffing around him, going from his face to his body to his tail, pinching his nose and no doubt wondering why this strange animal wasn’t giving off any scent.

  “Time for you to tell me what happened down there, Lud,” he said.

  “Can we walk while we do it?”

  Right now, nothing in the world sounded better than taking Ludwig for a walk. His friend had been through a lot, so anything Jakub could do to make him feel better was worth it. It was just a pity they only had the bleak Killeshi landscape to go through, rather than the gardens around the academy.

  Jakub cast his map in front of him.

  “We’re miles away from where I left Morrigan and Kortho. Come on, you can tell me along the way.”

  56

  With the bracelet of rest pumping him with artificial energy that he knew he’d have to pay for before long, they walked through the thornweed fields and toward the hidden alcove where he’d left her.

  Rud and Chaser walked alongside them, and Jakub felt jealousy at how unaffected physically the teen was. He supposed that living out here in the wilds had attuned him to its struggles, and even if he wasn’t well-built, his body was better conditioned to adapt to it.

  “It was when I was in the hamlet,” said Ludwig, “The necromancer saw us, and you had to fade me. You remember?”

  Jakub nodded. At least the memory off that wasn’t what the demon had stolen from him. “I’m sorry I had to leave you alone like that.”

  “You had no choice. Don’t feel bad.”

  “Thanks, friend.”

  “After I left and went back to the Greylands, I started to run. I had this feeling, Jakub, like something was watching me. I thought it might be him.”

  “Ryden?”

  “Is that his name?”

  “That’s the name of the necromancer.”

  “I thought it might be him; I know that better necromancers…”

  Ludwig stopped talking now, and gave Jakub a stare. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. More experienced necromancers, I meant.”

  “It’s okay, Lud.”

  “I know that some of them can enter the Greylands. It wasn’t him, though, but someone was there.”

  “Kortho?”

  “No. I know he’s down there, but not him. The boy.”

  “Boy? What boy?”

  “You know, the one we found under the outpost. The undead boy.”

  Jakub remembered being in the basement of the outpost, when Ludwig was following the death scent he’d picked up, and he’d hoped it was the soldier. He remembered fighting two creatures down there, and then looting. But a boy? What was Ludwig talking about?

  “We didn’t meet a boy down there, Lud. The place was a massacre; there was nobody left alive.”

  “Nobody left…what are you talking about, Jakub? He was undead! He was watching us. You tried to speak to him, but he couldn’t talk.”

  “Lud, I…”

  Then it hit him.

  Whoever this boy was, it was a memory that the demon had taken from him. The demon hadn’t had much time to sift through his thoughts, so rather than plunder his past or his ingrained knowledge, it had grabbed one of his more recent memories.

  “I can’t remember him,” he said. “I messed up in the Greylands, and I looked at a demon for too long. He must have taken that memory.”

  “Jakub, come on. Why would you do that?”

  “It was pretty hectic down there, with Ryden coming for us, and seeing you on that spike.”

  “Then you don’t remember anything that has happened?”

  “I can see it all. Leaving the basement, finding Morrigan’s hut, Kortho dying. Just no boy. Tell me about him.”

  “He was undead, but he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t tell us what had happened to him, or we thought so. He’s a l
iar.”

  “How can he be a liar if he can’t talk?”

  “He can talk, Jakub. He uses his thoughts. After you faded me in the hamlet and I was back in the Greylands, he was the one watching me. He had no trouble talking then, I promise you. He’s not just some undead boy. He’s binded to the necromancer.”

  Jakub felt this surprise like a whiplash. “Ryden has binded a human to him?”

  “Whenever the boy died, Ryden must have found him in the Greylands and binded him to him.”

  “That’s sick. You can’t do that; a person stays in the Greylands until they’re resurrected, or they leave and go to the next life when the window closes. You don’t bind them to the Greylands. It’s wrong. No wonder this bastard was banished from the academy.”

  “Well he wasn’t the only one binded to Ryden, either. He had a demon with him; a horrible little creature with a goatee beard, who called himself Clarence.”

  “So they found you in the Greylands. What then?”

  “They broke the code. They used essence-vine to tie me, and they carried me through the Greylands until they found the spike. They climbed a hill next to it and then threw me onto it and left me to die.”

  “So this boy…he was with us for a while, then?”

  “Up until I left you.”

  “It must have cost Ryden a hell of a lot of soul essence to make the boy stay with us. I can’t afford to let Ryden find me again - he’s too strong. We need to get to Kortho.”

  “That’s the problem, Jakub. Kortho is with Morrigan. The boy is with them too.”

  57

  They walked faster now, but with every step they took the sense of danger tugged at Jakub. He’d left Kortho with Morrigan, and apparently with this boy, too. If the boy was one of Ryden’s binded, then he’d heard everything that he and Morrigan had talked about in his presence.

  He knew how important Kortho was to Jakub. He knew why they’d come to the Killeshi lands, and he knew their plans.

  The only saving grace was that as a binded, he couldn’t hurt Morrigan, nor touch Kortho’s body. The only thing he could do was to tell Ryden where they were, and that meant they had to get back to the alcove.