Bone Lord 3

by Dante King

  Mur chuckled sourly, his laughter booming like thunder across the snowy plain. “Are you trying to provoke me with your crazy talk, little god?” he rumbled, his chortles giving way to a stormy look of wrath. “Because if so, it’s working.”

  “It’s not crazy talk at all, Jotunn. I’m the God of Death. Do you understand what that means? Look at the army behind me; most of them are undead. They were just like these dead Frost Giants lying all over this field—until I raised them from the dead. Death is final for everyone, everyone except me. For me, it’s a slight hurdle, a bump in the road. Your warriors are dead? No problem. If I use my Death magic on them, they won’t be dead any longer.”

  Mur peered past me at the huge army of undead troops behind me. There was quite an astounding variety now, from undead war-spiders to undead barbarian zombies on undead direwolves to skeletons and Crusaders. He stared at them for a very long time. I could almost hear the mechanisms in his brain spinning.

  “You can truly resurrect these dead warriors, my dead friends and brothers?” he eventually asked.

  “I can resurrect them, and I can resurrect the dead warriors who fought for Engroth too. Look, they won’t be ‘alive,’ and they won’t remember you or really even have minds at all, but they’ll fight just as furiously as any living warrior. In fact, they’re more powerful than living warriors because they can’t feel pain or fear. This is what I’m trying to tell you, Mur: I can resurrect every dead warrior on this field, no matter whose side they fought on, and they’ll all fight for you. And they’ll fight better than any living troops could.”

  Mur narrowed his eyes with suspicion as he stared down at me. He folded his arms, each as thick as the trunk of an old oak tree, across his enormous chest.

  “And why would you do this for me?” he asked. “You have only just met me.”

  “Well,” I answered, grinning up at him, “I would obviously have something to ask of you in exchange for this. I don’t hand out favors.”

  “And what would you ask of me?”

  “I need something Engroth has in his possession, the Cloak of Changing. Swear an oath to give me this cloak when we defeat Engroth. Promise to allow my army unhindered passage through the Land of the Frost Giants. Do these both, and I’ll give you a better army than you ever could have dreamed of, one to defeat Engroth. Hell, I’ll even fight alongside you, give you a little hand. Do remember that these undead troops I’ll resurrect will be mine after we help you win. They’ll be leaving these lands along with me after you achieve victory. But then, you won’t need them any more. You’ll have your own army of living Frost Giants once you’re King of the Jotunn.”

  “If I win, I will indeed have my own army of living Jotunn.”

  “Not if you win, Mur,” I said with a swift smile. “When you win. I guarantee it.”

  He nodded. For the first time since he and I had started talking, a smile came over his face. He dropped onto his knees, pulled a dagger from his belt—a small dagger to him but a weapon that was the size of a greatsword to me—and opened a cut across his palm. He then curled his bleeding hand into a fist and squeezed it tight so that drops of red blood oozed out and dripped onto the snow between us.

  “I swear an oath by my blood,” he said, “that if you help me to achieve victory against the corrupt King Engroth, I will give you everything you have asked of me.”

  “Very well,” I said.

  Getting Mur to agree to my terms required a big promise, and raising this many huge Jotunn was going to take it out of me. I’d felt Grave Oath buzzing hundreds, perhaps even thousands of times since we’d left Hothgrum. I had extra strength stored up from the fresh kills made in my name, but even so, this was the biggest mass resurrection I’d ever conducted. Considering that the Jotunn were probably a class above humans and a few classes above beasts, this was going to suck my reservoirs dry.

  Still, I had to get my hands on the Cloak of Changing. If I could add a large squadron of undead Frost Giants to my army in the process, then it was definitely worth the risk.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Still atop Fang’s saddle, I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath, and focused my mind and spirit. This task would require enormous concentration and every ounce of Death magic I possessed. My spirit stepped out of my body, and I felt a black thread, sticky like spider silk, beginning to uncoil from each of my palms. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was doing this, but I knew that the thread was the method of resurrecting multiple beings simultaneously. My body stood still, hovering in a state that was somewhere between life and death. My spirit, connected to my body via a powerful, stretchy thread, walked among the dead Frost Giants. As I passed each corpse, I pressed my palm onto their huge chests, just over their hearts. The black thread stuck there and continued to unravel from my palms, which contained a seemingly infinite supply.

  Soon, all of the corpses were connected to each other by a web of black thread. In turn, this thread was connected to my palms. I could also feel it running up my arms, inside them like a vein connected to my heart. I looked down at saw that my heart was glowing like a blacksmith’s forge, hot and white in the center of my chest. I knew that to raise all of these Jotunn simultaneously, I would have to blast a potent charge of energy out from my heart into theirs. But would it be so potent that it would entirely extinguish the fire of life that was glowing in my heart? If this happened, it would all be over. There would be no coming back from that. I’d be just as dead as the corpses to which my network of black thread was now connected.

  It was a risk I had to take. I had to trust my instincts and my powers. They hadn’t let me down yet.

  “All right, motherfuckers,” I whispered, “it’s now or never. Dead Jotunn warriors, you will rise from the grave and serve me, Vance Chauzec, your new master!”

  I unleashed a charge of heat and energy from my glowing heart. The light and fire blasted out through the black threads at lightning speed, jumping along the complex strands of the web. It kept flowing out of my heart, as if my heart had been a full wineskin that I’d just stabbed with a dagger. It poured, and there was no way to patch the leak. Now that I’d started this process, there would be no stopping it. If I ran out of light and heat before the last Jotunn warrior was resurrected, that would be the end for me.

  “Rise, you motherfuckers, rise!” I gritted my teeth through the depleting sensation, refusing to let go.

  Out on the battlefield, the glazed-over eyes of the dead Jotunn started to glow a bright yellow-green. I could see—as if their bodies had suddenly become partially transparent—the congealing blood in their veins turning from dark crimson to that same yellow-green hue, becoming the liquid that would turn them from corpses into undead, undead who served me unfailingly.

  One by one, the limbs of the huge dead giants started to twitch and jerk. Soon, they were staggering to their feet, massive limbs filled with new strength, faces wearing the blank, emotionless expressions of zombies.

  It was working, but it was also killing me. Heat and light continued to gush furiously out of my heart into the black web. While more Jotunn were rising from the grave, many of them still lay dead on the ground. A lot of my energy would still be needed to resurrect them all.

  I growled against the growing weakness and sense of debilitation as my heart grew ever dimmer and my pulse slowed. When only a few corpse were left, I could barely stay on my feet, even in spirit form. My every limb was filled with heavy lead, dragging me down, as if my strength was being drained from my body like blood from a thousand cuts. A darkness clouded my vision, everything melting into the blackness of this growing shadow.

  It was too much. I’d been too ambitious, and now that ambition was going to kill me. The glow in my heart reduced to a barely perceptible shimmer, so dim that it was almost nonexistent. I dropped to my knees as the last of my energy dripped out of my heart. Before I would have collapsed completely, the eyes of the final dead Frost Giant illuminated with a yellow-green glow, and he rose t
o his feet.

  It was done.

  It had almost killed me, but it was done.

  The black spider-silk threads exploded into vapor and were gone. Like a loosed crossbow bolt, my spirit was hurled back into my body. I found the same crushing weakness, and it was all I could do to remain upright in Fang’s saddle. I could barely breathe, let alone talk, but I was still alive. I was stronger than I knew.

  “I could never have done what you just did, not at my most powerful as a goddess,” Isu murmured in awe. “You are a stronger Death deity than I ever was.”

  Elyse rushed to me on her horse, wearing a look of concern. She jumped onto Fang’s back behind me and helped support me so that I didn’t fall out of the saddle. She pressed a wineskin to my lips.

  “Drink, Vance, drink!” she instructed, her tone anxious.

  I managed to part my lips and allowed the liquid to fill my mouth. My mouth was suddenly on fire with the furious vigor of Yorish brandy. I had no option but to gulp it down and let it burn a fiery passage down my gullet into my stomach. But once it was there, it did go a ways toward refilling my terribly depleted stores of strength and energy.

  “Are you feeling any better?” Elyse asked. “Grast gave me some of this before we left Brakith. He said he had a feeling it might come in handy. And I think it just did!”

  I managed to nod. The powerful brandy was definitely helping, but I’d need a lot more than just liquor to rejuvenate me.

  “Transport yourself to the gray tree,” Isu instructed, obviously knowing that brandy was insufficient. “The energy from the souls there is used to grow new skills, yes, but you can also use that energy to fortify yourself in situations like this. Cut the tree and drink the sap that oozes from it. It will replenish your energy.”

  “You could have told me that long ago,” I croaked.

  “You didn’t ask.” Isu flashed me a cheeky wink. “Go to the tree and do as I’ve told you. It will temporarily stunt the development of your new skills, but it will help you to restore your strength, which is more important right now.”

  I closed my eyes and journeyed to the black plane. I staggered across the glass-smooth surface toward the great sentinel, every step requiring monumental effort. New skills were tantalizingly half-visible through the fog near the upper branches, but they would have to wait. Right now, I needed to get back into fighting shape.

  As Isu had told me, I used Grave Oath to make a cut in the trunk of the gray tree. I couldn’t help but be surprised at what came out of the incision. Liquefied light, glowing brightly in the same yellowy-green hue as the eyes of my undead creatures.

  “Well, here goes nothing,” I said and leaned forward and started slurping up the gooey sap, thick as treacle.

  Thankfully, the glowing liquid tasted about as sweet as treacle too, so it didn’t require much effort to consume a fair bit. With each mouthful of the tar-like but sweet substance, strength and energy surged through my muscles. The strength I’d lost when I’d resurrected the Jotunn was returning to me in leaps and bounds. After a couple of mouthfuls, I felt like a new man… god.

  With a jolt, I catapulted myself out of this realm and back into my body. I sat bolt upright in Fang’s saddle. The world itself seemed to have improved as well; colors looked more vivid, shapes were crisper and more defined, and even the air seemed to smell better.

  “Damn,” I murmured to nobody in particular, “that feels good.” I looked up at Mur, who was waiting with his huge arms crossed over his chest. “How do you like your new army, Mur?”

  “They look like strong warriors,” he boomed, clearly impressed. “You are right; I believe that there is a good chance of victory with this force.”

  “Don’t forget that I’m adding my troops to it as well,” I said. “We’re gonna crush Engroth, my gigantic friend! What are we waiting for? Take us to Engroth’s castle!”

  Mur grinned and boomed out a chuckle that all but shook the ground. “It is a half day’s march from here. Follow me.”

  He took off at a brisk walk, and I directed both my army and my new force of undead Frost Giants to follow him. I’d been expecting to have to fight the Frost Giants; I just hadn’t expected that we’d have some of them on our side too. I only hoped this detour wouldn’t give Rodrick too much time.

  One thing at a time. That was how we would get through this. One thing at a time.

  By the time Engroth’s castle was in sight, dusk was falling. It was enormous. If it came to a siege, there was no way we’d be getting in, not for months, or years even. It was surrounded by a huge moat filled with black water, large chunks of ice drifting atop it.

  “Tell me, Mur,” I said, joining him by his side. “How good is the night vision of the Jotunn?”

  “Our eyes are accustomed to seeing in bright snow,” he said. “So we can deal with bright lights very well and cannot go snow-blind. In darkness, however, our eyesight is very poor. Worse than that of humans.”

  I clasped my hands together. “Excellent.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “We don’t need to wait until tomorrow to attack.”

  “We do not have the time to build siege engines and cut down trees for battering rams now. There is no way we can attack tonight.”

  “I don’t intend for this to be a siege, Mur.”

  “You do not?”

  “Look up. It’s going to be a moonless night. I know a much better, much faster way to do this.”

  “You do?”

  “My troops—and your new troops—are undead. They don’t need to eat, drink, sleep… or breathe. This means they cannot drown. Ice cold water might slow them down a little, but not by much. You see where I’m going with this?”

  Mur turned and looked at the huge moat that surrounded the castle, and he nodded slowly. Then he started to laugh, a slow chuckle at first, undulating into a full-blown, raucous roar that rattled the trees. When he was done laughing, we set to work.

  We decided to attack an hour after midnight. The thick darkness of the moonless night made it impossible for any of the Frost Giants inside the fortress to see what we were planning, nor did I allow anyone to light fires, so we had no need to hide. We also decided to delay the attack until this time because, according to Mur, Engroth and his warriors would be feasting tonight after their victory and getting drunk. By the early hours, they would be heavily inebriated, their judgment impaired and our chances of victory increased.

  Once the appointed hour arrived, I set off with my party and Mur. This time, we were all carrying large torches. I wanted them to think we were preparing for a siege as we trekked down the road that led to the fortress gates. As for the army, they did not accompany us. The drawbridge was raised, and there was no way to cross the moat of black, ice-thick water. But I was pretty sure that they would lower it for us.

  We’d already placed a number of piles of logs and wood all around the broad, snow-covered field that covered a couple hundred yards in front of the castle. Now, each of us took our torches to a different pile and lit up a few bonfires. After we were all done, the whole field was illuminated by the orange glow. Of course, the moment we’d strode out onto the field with our torches, bright in the pitch-black night, we’d attracted the attention of the few sentries posted on the battlements of the castle, hundreds of yards above the ground. By the time we’d finished lighting the bonfires, quite a crowd of Frost Giants had gathered on the battlements. Drunk, they roared insults and threats at us—especially at Mur, whom they recognized right away—but we ignored them until the pieces of our plan was set to fall into place.

  “I demand to speak to Engroth!” Mur yelled to the battlements when we’d made our way to the gates.

  “That’s King Engroth to you, you piece of shit!” one of the Jotunn yelled. “What the frozen hell are you doing here anyway? You’ve been banished for life. Fuck off—before we send you to join your dead friends.”

  “You’re a bunch of cowardly little cock-gobblers,” I shouted at
them. “Look at all of you, standing up there, yelling insults at us, hiding behind your walls and gates like scared little children.”

  “Your pet human speaks, Mur, you butthole,” another one shouted. “How cute.”

  “He is no mere human,” Mur yelled back. “He is the God of Death, and he will destroy all of you!”

  They all roared with laughter, hooting and howling and slapping their enormous thighs with mirth.

  “You know what?” yet another yelled down. “I’m going to fetch King Engroth. This’ll make him laugh. It’ll make his evening to see just how low you’ve sunk, Mur—bringing along some human to try to help you; it’s unbelievable! You’ve lost your bloody mind, you have. Pathetic!”

  We continued to trade insults while the Frost Giant went to fetch Engroth. These chumps were playing right into our hands. After a couple of minutes, an older-looking Frost Giant with an enormous white beard and a golden crown appeared on the battlements. He sneered down at us and cackled.

  “What is the meaning of this, Mur?” he asked. “Were you not satisfied with the annihilation of your entire army? Do you wish for more punishment? The torture chamber can be prepared, if that’s what you’re after. As for your little human friends, well. . .” He paused to lick his lips, his massive tongue almost the size of my arm. “. . . roast human is just what we need to finish off our evening.”

  “I will have your head on a spike before the sun rises, Engroth,” Mur roared. “I promise you that. Come, send out your warriors, you coward! Send them, and see what Mur is truly made of!”

  “My warriors already destroyed you once today,” Engroth growled, clearly irritated now. “They won’t mind doing it a second time.” He turned his head to speak over his shoulder. “Open the drawbridge. Send out a couple of warriors to crush this rabble like the insects they are!”

  “You are the ones who will be crushed. Mark my words!” Mur yelled.

  We turned and jogged back to our small party in the middle of the field as the huge wheels and gears of the drawbridge began to creak and groan. We watched in grim silence as the drawbridge was lowered. We had to be patient here. As tempting as it was to launch the next phase of the plan, I had to wait for the perfect moment.