by Pirateaba
We get fifteen steps in, and then suddenly we’re rushing back out. Periss and her warriors stop in confusion, but I know what’s wrong.
“It’s a maze. You have to follow a path to get out.”
She turns and seizes me with both claws.
“What path!? Tell us how to get out?”
“I don’t know! I’ve only got this, but it points towards the Necromancer, not away!”
I show her the magical stone. Periss looks at it and shakes her head.
“We’re trapped here, then.”
She slowly lets go of me and looks around.
“Soldiers, comrades. It’s been an honor. Say your last words now, if you have them.”
The other Drakes and Gnolls look at Periss, and their weapons lower. They hesitate. Then a Drake begins to murmur, and a Gnoll howls towards the sky. I stare as the others begin speaking quietly, or simply wait, hands on hilts, staring at the castle.
Periss looks at me, all hostility gone.
“I have always loved my Lord. I wish I had the courage to tell him.”
I stare at her, uncomprehending. Periss holds my gaze, and then nods once and turns away.
A goodbye.
I don’t get it. I don’t understand. And in truth, I never have.
The Necromancer. Az’kerash. To me, he’s just another name, another bigwig in a world where everyone’s bald. How could I understand who he is, when everyone just says his name as if what he’s done is common knowledge?
Well, it probably is. But I don’t know it. It’s like someone who’s never been to our world hearing the name Hitler and wondering who he was. I didn’t realize the gravity of what Teriarch was asking me to do, and I don’t know why the soldiers look like they’re ready for death.
But then the earth shakes, and I do. I hear a groan, not the sound of any natural geological process, but the sound of something that is neither living nor natural. It echoes out of the ground, a horrible noise that comes from beyond, from the depths of dark horror and fear.
Bleeding in the brain. Squiggling shapes in your bedroom. The shadow standing at your front door. Maggots crawling in your mouth and eyes.
Fear.
Thump. Thump.
My heartbeat echoes. I turn, and look towards a patch of ground that begins to bulge upwards. Periss raises her sword slowly.
The earth shakes. I can feel it in my bones.
This is the place where the dead gather. This is the place where the Necromancer lives. But somehow I forgot what that means.
Now I know. Now I understand.
Something reaches up out of the ground, a hand, grey-green flesh, rotten sinew. But pink in places, too, oozing red. And bone. An arm, but not one any Human would have.
It reaches towards the sky, each finger as tall as I am, and the colossus rises. A head breaks the snow, and two eyes filled with huge, squirming maggots gapes at us. I’m screaming in my head, but the cold air is filled only with silence.
Az’Kerash. The Necromancer.
The undead giant slowly rises out of the ground and the soldiers behind me stare up at it. Suddenly, their magical gear that was so deadly seems like toys in the hands of children. They are ants, and so am I.
The giant stops halfway out of the ground. It raies it’s other arm, shedding snow and dirt and waits. I hesitate, but then I see more shapes.
They’re sitting up out of the snow, or walking from the castle. Skeletons, undead, both far more ghastly shapes too. A hideous, bloated creature with bones for teeth and claws drags itself across the ground, dribbling black blood from its ‘mouth’. A things of many worms reshapes itself as it slowly drags itself through the snow.
A tall skeleton of a Gnoll strides towards us, a massive battleaxe in his hand, faded silver armor and a circlet shining in the moonlight.
An army of the dead. They advance towards us, walking slowly, as if they’ve got all the time in the world. And they do. They’re dead, endless, immortal. And we are trapped and alone.
“Human.”
Periss speaks quietly to me, her eyes never leaving the approaching undead. She holds her sword at the ready, tip pointed straight ahead.
“What was it that you were supposed to deliver?”
I don’t even bother with hesitation. What’s the point, now? I sense the ruby ring and letter in my pouch.
“A letter to Az’kerash from a Dragon.”
She stares at me silently. Then her lips quirk into a half-smile.
“And my Lord thought you were carrying a mere artifact of the past. Would that he knew this. Well, go.”
She points towards the castle and I stare at her.
“You’re just letting me leave?”
She shrugs as the horror drags itself out of the ground. The soldiers around her are forming into a line, their faces grim.
“You have your duty, I have mine. Let us both die fulfilling our roles.”
Across the snowy expanse, the undead Gnoll skeleton in armor stops and speaks. His voice is hollow, booming.
“I am Kerash, Commander of the Endless Legions of Az’Kerash. Die with honor.”
Something walks beside him. She looks almost humanoid, but she had no face, no features. Her body is rotted flesh, green in places, purple and blue and black in others. She rots, even in this cold, giving off a putrid stench.
“I am Bea. Am I not beautiful?”
Her dead flesh moves and I feel my stomach heaving involuntarily. Periss grits her teeth together, but her voice never wavers.
“Run, Human. This is between us and them.”
“The old blood shall be avenged.”
A Gnoll says that. He raises an arrow and sights towards the thing that called itself Bea, but doesn’t fire. Not yet.
“Death to the Necromancer.”
I look to Periss.
“You’ll die. Run.”
She looks at me, just once, and shakes her head.
“Drakes do not run. Go!”
My feet take me away as the soldiers charge. Sixteen against a horde. Kerash raises his battleaxe with one hand and Bea spreads her arms wide. I turn and pump my legs, running past zombies and horrors that reach for me.
The screaming begins in only seconds. I hear the sounds of death, of flesh being torn and bones breaking. But I hear the living shouting in defiance as they charge the dead, fighting to the last. But falling.
One by one.
—-
Zel Shivertail and Lord Ilvriss dueled in the snowy clearing, exchanging blows as they circled in the cold night. One wore armor sparkling with enchantments and held a sword which glowed in the night; the other wore plain steel and fought with his claws.
It was a close fight, but unbalanced. Zel was swifter, stronger, tougher. His claws were like steel and he had two and Ilvriss had only his sword. But the [Lord]’s armaments were magic, and he fought taking full advantage of that fact.
The magic enchantments on Ilvriss’s armor deflected Zel’s every strike, and the Drake [General] found himself slowly being pressed backwards as the [Lord] slashed with rapid, powerful cuts of his long sword.
With each cut Zel took, no matter how small, he stumbled, and his scales would darken around the cuts. Ilvriss pressed the attack mercilessly, guarding his uncovered face, the only spot Zel could truly attack.
“Surrender, Shivertail. This is too small a place for you to die. Once your Alliance surrenders you will be released.”
“It’s not over yet, Ilvriss.”
Zel ducked a slash and kicked out, sending Ilvriss stumbling back. The Drake snarled and raised his sword, and the blade glowed brighter. But then he wavered.
In the silence of the snowy night, something cracked. The [Lord] stared at his clawed hands. They were decorated by several rings that swirled with light, but one now grew dark. Slowly, the emerald gemstone, a brilliant stone with luminescent depths, broke in two. The gold holding the gemstone split, and the pieces fell into the snow.
Ilvriss stared
at the broken ring. For a few seconds, the world stopped for him, and the sword lowered in his grasp. He whispered.
“Periss?”
Ilvriss stared for just a second too long. Zel rushed forwards and seized the long sword by the base of the blade. The Drake howled as his hand bled, but now Ilvriss was caught, and although the [Lord] struggled, he was unable to tear his blade loose.
Zel raised a hand and balled it into a fist. Ilvriss shouted with rage as he released his sword and reached for a dagger at his belt. He lashed out, took a blow to the chin, and collapsed on the ground.
Slowly, Zel Shivertail sat next to Ilvriss and sighed. Then he heaved the Drake onto his shoulder and looked around. There was no sign of Ryoka or Lady Periss and her soldiers. And he had no time to look.
The [General] started running back the way both Ryoka and Ilvriss’s soldiers had come, bouncing the unconscious [Lord] on his shoulder. The battle wasn’t won. Not yet.
Zel pretended not to have seen the tears on Ilvriss’s face, and the salty drops fell into the snow as the Drake carried the Lord of the Wall onwards, leaving the broken ring behind in the snow.
—-
Somehow I made it across the open stretch of ground between me and the castle. I don’t know how; I just ran. Ran as I’d never done before. The undead tried to seize me, but most of them were still focused on the soldiers fighting behind me.
I run, with blood freezing in my veins, towards the drawbridge. It was lowered, and I pound across the black metal, hearing the voices dwindling behind me. I did this. I brought them here.
A courtyard, deserted, paving stones covered with snow. And at the end, two vast double doors. My legs cover the distance in seconds and my hands seize the vast rings, pulling with all my strength.
I hear a scream as I throw open the wide doors and rush inside. Periss. I can’t focus on her death, but I feel the pang in my heart. She went down fighting.
I have to run. I can’t hear any sounds of pursuit, but the undead are terrifyingly silent.
The castle’s corridors are massive and silent. I run through them, blindly at first, and then by the faint light of Teriarch’s stone. Run, run!
Glowing, pinpoints of light all around me. The corridors are filled with silent skeletons, zombies, the undead! But they don’t move. They don’t even look at me as I run past. They’re…inactive. But something is moving down here.
“Intruder. Halt and—”
I skid to a halt. Someone is standing down the dark corridor. A woman. No. Not a woman.
A…knight? She’s wearing armor. But then she walks forwards, and I see that armor is bone. Her skin is bone. She is bone.
The knight made of bones is no Toren, though. Her face resembles a beautiful woman’s harsh and angular though it might be, but her face is ivory white. Bone. And her armor, which is just another part of her body, is gleaming white. She has a great sword made of bone in her hands.
At her back are a group of skeletons. Again, not like Toren. These ones look like they’ve been…altered. They have far too many ribs, and it looks like their frames have been redesigned so they look like walking tanks. They’re all armed, and the bone-woman is striding towards me.
I reach towards my belt. Teriarch’s potion? No. The bag. I rip the string away and hurl it towards the woman.
She slices the bag in half before it gets anywhere near her. But that just makes the contents explode in her face. White powder fills the air and she halts, looking confused.
The fine particles fill the corridor, practically a smokescreen initself. The woman stares at the particles covering her and the skeletons and waves it away.
“…Flour?”
That’s exactly what it is. I don’t know how the hell Octavia packed the flour in so tight—probably the same way she made the smokescreen. But now the air is saturated, and I grab the last potion out of my belt. I uncork it and hurl it in one moiton.
Flame’s burst from the bottle the instant it meets the air. But even as the bone woman dodges, the liquid inside the bottle combusts and the hot oil and animal fat mixed with the pine resin burst outwards.
Liquid flame. Greek fire. Napalm. My last resort. But it misses the woman and instead bursts on a skeleton. She looks back at me—
And the air explodes.
The swirling flour dust and sugar I had Octavia pack into the bag combusts as the fine particles ignite. It’s called a dust explosion, and it’s as close to an actual bomb as I was willing to make.
Dust in the air. People know flour explodes when heated, but it’s really any fine particle in enough density that will combust. Coal mines, grain silos, even a kitchen can create these conditions.
The force of the blast nearly throws me off my feet and the heat cooks me. The flour dust blows outwards as the flames expand outwards, engulfing everything caught in the center of the blast in fire.
But as the smoke clears, the woman made of bone strides forward, unharmed, untouched. Her eyes glow silver with rage, as she raises her great sword.
“You cannot—”
She stops. I’m already sprinting down the corridor, far, far away from her. I started running even before the flour exploded*.
*Rule one of monsters. You didn’t kill them. You didn’t even hurt them. I don’t care if you dropped a bomb on them or cut off their heads. They’re alive. Run.
I come to a cross in the halls filled with the waiting dead. I look at my stone. Left. I run, and see a pair of massive double doors. They’re guarded, but the soldiers stand still and silent like the others. I hesitate, but I hear thunder from behind and look over my shoulder and see the undead bone monster charging down at me. She’s running fast for someone so huge, but she looks like a freight train heading my way.
I rush towards the doors and heave at them. They’re heavy. I have to push all my weight against one, but slowly, slowly, the left door slides open. I slide through, and tumble into the vast room ahead of me. I spring to my feet—
“[Sticky Webbing].”
Thick strands of web fly out and encircle me. Instantly, I’m covered in webs, barely able to move. I stare at the hand that cast the spell, and for the first time, I see Az’kerash, Perril Chandler, the Necromancer in person.
He’s just…an old man.
Az’kerash stands in the center of a vast, circular room, staring upwards, one finger pointed at me. He looks like an old man. Just that.
His face is lined and he has white hair; he looks like Teriarch’s human form, but without the superhuman physique. He’s just an old man, with white locks and skin that’s albino white.
But he is the Necromancer. I can feel the power he has in the air. It seems to pulse off him, so much raw energy it makes me sick. I fear him more than anything else.
His right hand is glowing, and he’s staring up at something. My eyes travel towards it, and my head goes blank.
Impossible. Horrific. But what hangs above me is a nightmare of flesh and bones. It looks like a—whale. Or parts of one. Something—his magic—is shaping the flesh and bone overhead, transforming the carcass into a shifting mass of organs and muscle. There’s too much bone up there, and it’s curving against the whale’s skull. It shifts, and I see tendons and muscle moving—
I have to look away. The Necromancer doesn’t even glance my way, but he speaks.
“Venitra. Lower your sword.”
I can’t look around. I can barely move my legs; if I tried I’d definitely fall over. But I hear the heavy footsteps.
“Master—”
“You have failed. Regard this as a lesson and learn from it.”
“Yes, master.”
Her voice is deep, but surprisingly soft. I feel a presence behind me.
“I will dispose of the intruder now.”
“That won’t be necessary. Thank you, Venitra. I will take care of this myself. Leave me.”
I see the bone woman appear in my peripherals for just a moment. She looks at me with eyes full of cold fury
, and then turns and silently exits the room.
I am left alone with Az’kerash. And now that I can look away from the terrible sight above me, I begin to see other details.
He is just a human or—he looks like one. But he bears other marks of his profession.
His robes are black. But that word and color don’t describe a tenth of what he is actually wearing. Can you weave shadows together? Can you take midnight and color it with shades of darkness, so finely woven that the world bends where the folds of the robes meet and swirl together? That’s his robe.
It is shadows, and they slowly ripple over his form, sucking in all light. And he has a ring on his finger, a piece of silver that looks normal, but makes what little magical sense I have scream at me that it is not.
And then Az’kerash speaks, and his voice is normal. Old, cracked, but still clear and strong. And—distant. He doesn’t look at me as he talks out loud.
“What is the point of having help if they can’t even keep out a single intruder? But then, if they were as competent as the creator, what would be my role? Wouldn’t you agree, young lady?”
“I—”
“It is impressive that you made it this far. But I am busy, and I will discover anything of value from your corpse at a later time.”
He points at my face and speaks.
“[Silent Sickle].”
The air ripples, and a ring of edged silver speeds towards my face. I throw my weight against the webs, and topple over.
The sickle cuts my hair, and through the flesh of my shoulder, so finely that only when I fall and jar the cut does it start to bleed. And the pain hasn’t begun yet, so severe is the cut.
“Interesting. Low-level spells have their weaknesses. I commend you.”
His finger shifts downwards towards my face. I stare at the Necromancer and know I’m about to die.
He’s—he’s not even looking at me. His other hand is shimmering with so much magic that it’s making me feel sick just looking at it. I don’t even think he’s paying attention; he’s acting on autopilot!
“Wait!”