by Sever Bronny
Augum watched the man’s arms carefully, trying to discern which hand was the person’s primary. The odds were he was right-handed, but what if he was a lefty? No, he had to play the odds. Sir Westwood taught him something years ago. He said, “In a fight, you just have to take your best guess, Augum. That’s all we can ever hope for, to do the best we can with what we know.”
Augum was frozen, pressed close to the tree. A shadow passed behind him, likely a walker. It did not see him, or smell him, or hear him. He was nothing to them, a twig. He was not moving. But could the walkers even see at night? Surely they could, somehow, even dimly so …
A reaver in rotten clothes passed in front, the stench of the grave so gruesome it almost made Augum gag. Freshly raised within days, and deceased within the last tenday no doubt, to be giving off such a rancid smell. It made him doubt the undead could smell anything at all. Its fire blade flickered off and on, as if the reaver was playing with it, perhaps bored of its own drab existence.
There was a sharp crack as something lumbered by. Augum caught the sight of a glistening giant claw and goopy rags. The wraith. And next surely came …
But the necromancer—or whoever took up the rear in that robe—did not come.
Augum was about to risk peeking around the trunk when a woman’s voice hissed, “Adai, my pets, adai.”
The squad of undead ceased moving immediately. Augum’s skin crawled. The language was ancient, said by a powerful and hissing voice that reminded Augum of Nefra. Further, the necromancer was in perfect command of her troops, as they stopped the moment she finished uttering the phrase, an indication of skill, which worried him.
“Adente quieteto.”
The remaining rustling of the undead ceased and the two burning swords went out. It was as if they were statues, totally silent, one with the Ravenwood. Did she sense his presence somehow?
The creep up his spine intensified … No, she was listening.
Sure enough, he could make out the distant alarm of the castle, the clamor and call for people to run inside, while others took up the call to action.
For a moment, nothing moved. All Augum could feel was the hammering of his heart against his chest. All he could hear were those distant shouts of alarm.
“Feratey,” said the cold hissing voice, and her troop immediately rustled to life, the two burning swords igniting, the group rumbling forward.
She passed right in front, stinking like clove and decay. Her hair glistened thick and seemed to squirm, as if made of roving insect antennae. For a moment, he watched the back of her, mouth dry, body cold. She was not human. She was … something else, a demon, perhaps.
He had to force himself to stop trembling, to focus. There was an opportunity here. They were making too much noise and he could follow and strike …
And so Augum crept on behind her, horribly aware the slightest misstep would lead to his discovery. He tried not to think about the fact he had no escape plan. No, what mattered were his friend’s lives, all those lives, and this necromancer had to be stopped.
He watched her hands casually sway to and fro as she walked in cool calmness, a night shepherd of walking corpses. He considered going for the right hand then and there. But just as he readied to strike, he saw it—the telltale glint of a ring … on the left hand.
There was a quick decision to be made. Steal, kill, or chop. Augum chose chop. Stealing would have been very difficult without Centarro, a spell he certainly could not risk in the circumstance, and giving a killing blow was risky and felt … treacherous. Not to mention trying to go for a one-hit kill against what was obviously a powerful necromancer was almost as foolish as him being out alone in the Ravenwood. It was a gruesome choice, but his only one.
He felt his blood quicken as he readied his mind, already envisioning the move. He crept closer and closer, stepping in her footsteps.
“Summano arma—” he spat, feeling the weight of the long sword crackle to life in his fist. At the same moment, he spun backward—for it would have been very difficult to achieve otherwise—and snapped his wrist, long sword flicking like a whip. It smashed into her left arm just above the hand, instantly severing it. She screamed, yanking her arm back. Augum wasted no time—he telekinetically yanked up the squirming detached hand, snatched the Exot ring off the scaly finger, threw the hand away, and bolted into the woods to the right.
She was so concerned with her hand and he had been so quick that he was sure she did not even glimpse his face—which, stupidly, he forgot to hide behind his hood.
She shouted attack commands as Augum careened through the woods, running in an arc, sure the castle would soon come upon him dead ahead. There he could easily defend the place with the help of the others.
Branches whipped his face, scratching it. But he barely felt the stings. Certainly didn’t think this through, did you, you fool? He couldn’t even light his palm because that would be too easy for them. And they were nearly on him, he could hear the lot of them crashing through the Ravenwood, racing, sprinting …
He raced on and on until, in the deep darkness, he mistook a tree trunk for a shadow, slamming into it head-on. He bounced back and slumped to the ground, dazed.
And just like that, they were upon him. He barely summoned his shield in time to block the first claw strike, a powerful whap that sent him tumbling through a thorn bush. He moaned and scrambled to get up. He was covered in scratches from the thorns, what felt like hundreds of them, and his head swam from slamming into the trunk. He could barely put up any arcane defense at all.
And then he saw the burning swords of the reavers race toward him. It was over. He had forfeited his life on such a simple quest.
“Adai!” said the necromancer, having caught up to the fray.
Augum glanced past the swaying shadows of death to see her face, now illuminated by the burning swords … and it was wasp-like, with kaleidoscope wasp eyes and a flicking wasp tongue. The hair was as he had seen it … moving and reptile like, but more like insect antennae. Combined with the nauseating stench of rot, it made Augum’s stomach churn.
“Just like all the others,” she hissed in a quiet voice, her face contorting in cool malice. “Running through the woods trying to get away. But you can’t get away. Nobody can. You will rise like the others.”
Augum recalled finding a note on a freshly-raised walker woman that had snagged herself in one of his traps.
The necromancer extended her left hand. It was whole again. She had regenerated quickly.
“Give it back,” she hissed.
Someone shouted distantly, an echo of a girl’s voice. He must have run far, for it came a ways away. Were they searching in the wrong spot? Curses, he should have run around the undead and back to the castle. What a foolish thing to have done, one of many, it seemed.
He briefly considered giving her his own Exot ring instead.
She raised her palm menacingly and nine black rings ruptured around her arm, darker than the night.
Augum’s choices zipped through his mind. Centarro would surely get him killed, he couldn’t fathom a way out with it with this many enemies. There was only one possible spell he could cast, but it was a very long shot. He had only cast it successfully once … And even if he could cast it, he still needed time to do so.
Her insect eyes thinned as she began speaking a spell.
“All right!” Augum blurted, suddenly realizing he had to avoid further injury in order to even attempt Cron. She was a 9th degree necromancer, after all, not to mention he couldn’t regenerate like she could.
He slowly opened his palm, revealing the stolen ring. She gestured and it floated over telekinetically. Her wasp head tilted at him as she put it back on. “You look familiar.”
“Do I?” Time … just a little time and an opportunity …
“You are him. The one. The traitor. The son of His Malignance.”
Suddenly Augum realized another terrible truth—every moment that passed meant more heartbea
ts in reverse. Gods, he had to cast the spell soon, otherwise …
She brought her Exot ring to her lips. “Contact Lord Sparkstone. I found him, My Liege. Your son. It is unbelievable to think so, but it seems they are once more hiding in Castle Arinthian—”
Augum quickly glanced about. All he needed was enough time to cast the spell, that was all, then he could go back in time to the right spot. But the spell required its own ritual gestures and phrasing. There was no way she would allow him to cast it facing each other like this. He needed a window of opportunity. And casting Centarro to open that window would be suicide.
“—yes, they must have disabled the enchantments you had placed, Your Divine Lordship.”
Augum decided to still his thoughts as the woman nodded along to the Lord of the Legion’s instructions. At conversation’s end, the Lord of the Legion would bring his entire army to Castle Arinthian. Augum couldn’t let that happen. He swallowed, trying to use the trick of Centarro’s focus without casting the spell. While the woman spoke, he breathed slowly, blanked his mind, and observed details …
There were the dead but minutely moist pine needles, some bursting alight as the burning blades drew near, only for the fires to fizzle out. There was the woman’s thick black robe, hanging heavy to her ankles. The walkers stood quiet while the reavers swayed slightly, burning swords fizzling now and then only to burst back to life. The wraith was a shadow blacker than the night, looming under a giant oak.
A giant dead oak …
“—then I shall bring him to you now, Your Esteemed Lordship,” the woman said coolly at last.
Now was the moment. He had to act … and he had to retrieve the ring before kicking off the spell.
She fixed him with her insect gaze. “Stand.”
Augum got up slowly with a groan, pretending he was hurt and exhausted, left hand closing over the reflecting prism in his pocket. Suddenly he slammed his wrists together aiming at the fat branch above the wraith. “ANNIHILO!” A thick bolt of lightning sliced through it, immediately sending it crashing onto the wraith and crushing both walkers while knocking the reavers back, the plan working better than he had hoped.
“Senna dormo coma torpos!” the woman hissed with an outstretched palm, but Augum’s Mind Armor was well trained against the Sleep spell. It was powerful, but had no effect other than a momentary tiredness. He used the initiative the mind block gained him to shout, “SUMMANO ARMA!” while already making the arcing attack gesture. By the time the long sword burst into his fist, the angle of the blade and its quickness allowed him to strike her right arm. She had reflexively raised it against her chest a moment too late, perhaps hoping to cast Shield. She screamed as her severed limb twirled aside.
“BAKA!” Augum shouted, using her moment of anguish to shove the foremost advancing reaver into the other one, sending both flying into the darkness. The action caused his long sword to disappear. Luckily, the wraith still struggled under the massive branch, and both walkers were still, skulls crushed.
“Deducto sap vitae!”
“MIMICA!” Augum responded immediately, angling the prism directly back at her left arm. She screamed from self-inflicted pain.
Augum lunged for her withering and useless hand and ripped off the Exot ring. It felt scaly and fuzzy in his hand, like the rump of a wasp. Then he slammed her with a forceful shoulder to the stomach, sending the insect necromancer tumbling onto the wraith, which finally flung the tree branch off itself.
Now, now, NOW!
Heart in throat, he nonetheless took one calming breath to organize his thoughts while slipping the Exot ring into his pocket. This was it—one chance. The wraith roared as he began the dance, forming each gesture precisely, coupling that gesture with the relevant visual, using every nuance of his focus and harnessing all his training.
“Gennisi xanno aetate reversa—” He ignored the life-ending wraith claw strike aimed at his neck, for he was defenseless. He had one precious shot to get this right. “—tempus potam xaeternum veteri momentus mortem—”
The needling ether slammed into him like a falling boulder—it had worked, he was inside the confines of Annocronomus Tempusari!
Meanwhile, the wraith’s claw had stopped a hairsbreadth from Augum’s throat. Then it slowly began reversing its swipe. Augum stepped aside and saw his ghostly self saying the words of the spell in reverse. It was a strange feeling to see himself standing there and putting everything on the line, staring dead ahead as the claw came at him.
Three heartbeats.
Meanwhile, the arcane ether furiously raked at his mind and pierced the membranes of his soul. It was like swimming against a river of needles, making concentration difficult. But what mattered was that he had the necromancer’s Exot ring. All that he needed to do now was return to the moment before the demonic necromancer told the Lord of the Legion where they were.
The oak branch slowly dumped itself back onto the struggling wraith. Next, the necromancer tumbled back to ghostly Augum’s shoulder, the reverse of Augum shouldering it in the stomach.
Augum suddenly noticed something interesting. There were now two Exot rings—the one Augum took with him, as all items on one’s person go with the caster into the time ether; and the one ghostly Augum returned onto the necromancer’s withered left hand, for ghostly Augum also possessed every item, being a perfect copy. Shoot, that he had not accounted for. Cron was complex!
He thought of everyone back at the castle. He thought of the villagers, the students, Mrs. Stone. He thought of sad Bridget being comforted by Brandon. And he thought of Leera. They were at grave risk, and it was now apparent there was only one thing to be done about the insect necromancer.
She had to be vanquished.
Ten heartbeats.
Augum watched her scream in reverse, then watched himself cast the Reflect spell (“!ACIMIMA”). Then she cast the necromantic Drain Life spell (“!eativ pas otcudeD”), as if reacting to his Reflect, even though the opposite had happened.
Suddenly both reavers returned from the darkness like specters. Whereas before one had been shoved into the other, now it played in reverse, with the other sticking oddly to the first. He watched his lightning long sword reappear as he finished doing the Push spell in reverse (“!AKAB”).
Fifteen heartbeats.
Ghost Augum’s lightning long sword moved in reverse, reconnecting with her raised right arm, which had twirled in reverse from the ground, reforming with her body. The blade then disappeared as Augum’s attack arc reversed, (“!AMRA ONAMMUS”).
The woman’s outstretched hand returned to her side as she fluidly said, “!soprot amoc omrod anneS!”
Twenty heartbeats.
He was pushing it, but still had to wait for her to finish. He vaguely remembered the moment. He was starting to feel faint from the needling ether, and began breathing quicker to keep his blood flow up. Unfortunately, that quickened his heart rate.
A thick bolt of lightning reconnected with the tree and ghostly Augum’s wrists. “!OLIHINNA” shouted ghostly Augum in reverse. Lightning returned to his hands while the fat oak branch rose off the wraith and walkers and reaffixed itself onto the tree stump, uncrumpling the walkers’ skulls and unpinning the wraith. Then ghostly Augum reversed back to a seated position.
Thirty heartbeats.
Augum positioned himself behind the necromancer. He had to time it just right, but it was becoming more and more difficult to think past the nauseating arcane ether that ravaged his soul, seeking to murder every nuance of his being with that needle river. It made him gasp and want to vomit. His heart rate increased again, fighting for life. Ridiculously, he found himself urging for everything to hurry up, just hurry up, damn you!
“dnatS,” the necromancer said in reverse. But this part was all so painfully slow! Augum watched his ghost self change his focus from the oak tree, to the necromancer’s robe, to the undead and finally to the pine needles on the ground. Meanwhile, the woman spoke in reverse into the Exot
ring, near impossible to understand.
“… decalp dah ouy stnemtnahcne eht delbasid aveh tsum yeht …”
Fifty heartbeats.
Come on, come on, come on! Shadows were moving in his peripheral vision, shadows that wished him ill will. Cold sweat trickled down his temples and back as black walls of unconsciousness began closing in. Unnameables, if he passed out, he’d either die or wake up an old man …
At last, here it came. He remembered himself looking about frantically like that. He waited for the final key word the necromancer used to reach the Lord of the Legion …
“—naihtnirA eltsaC ni gnidih erom ecno era yeht smees ti tub ,os kniht ot elbaveilebnu si tI .nos ruoY .egeiL yM ,mih dnuof I .enotskrapS droL tcatnoC”
There was the word—Contact!
Sixty heartbeats in, Augum made a pull gesture. “STOP!” The river of time ceased rushing immediately, and the sensation of being pierced by thousands of needles instantly went away. Augum was so nauseous that he felt bile rising, but not before he slammed his wrists together, shouting, “ANNIHILO!”
The necromancer, who had raised the Exot ring to her lips to contact the Lord of the Legion, only had a moment to realize Augum had disappeared in front of her before her unprotected insect head was blown off by a powerful strike of lightning. As her headless body buckled underneath her, Augum dropped and violently threw up, unable to help himself.
But the battle was far from over. There was a wraith and two reavers to contend with, and Augum was on his knees, vulnerable. The fact they had not collapsed indicated to him she had not raised them herself.
The attacks came furiously and quickly, with the reavers launching sword strike after sword strike, and Augum rolling and blocking with his shield, sick to his stomach, soul in agony—an altogether different kind of torment, perhaps best described as a profound spiritual unease.
Shadows moved in his peripheral vision. There were so many he dodged one that ended up being illusory, taking a scorching blow to the ankle from a reaver, crippling his movement. In comparison, the myriad scratches from the thorn bush were but a paltry bee sting.