“The Queen decides what constitutes Royal Security. Please state your full intentions.”
“I don’t have time to ‘state my full intentions’, don’t you understand? You’ll all be a horde of shambling zombies in a few hours!”
“Yes, but what are your exact intentions?”
Linaera screeched in frustration, much to Deriën’s concern. He made to intervene, but Linaera was already on it.
She sent the receptionist flying on to the floor; she marched after him relentlessly.
“Listen, you thumb-twidling, idiotic oaf, I will rip you limb-from-limb if you do not meet my request now!” The man cowered away, looking frightened.
Maybe that penetrated his thick skull, Deriën thought.
“Yes, ma’am. That can be arranged.” He hurried off, leaving Linaera pacing.
Fortunately, the man came back quickly.
“The Queen awaits your presence.”
***
Deriën fiddled nervously as their guards accompanied them.
They were all dressed in black. That in itself was enough to make Deriën uncomfortable.
What made him even more insecure was the fact that they all wore masks over their faces. Daggers were visibly stashed on them (and no doubt some could not be seen), and the looks they gave him were… unsettling.
Deriën had never feared much, but something about these people was different.
They had been travelling through the palace for a good few minutes, passing a variety of corridors – some long, some short, all lavish – until they finally arrived at an imposing oak door.
The guards knocked.
“Come in,” a female voice said. It was saccharine and high pitched, but also carried deeper authority within it.
The guards lead them inside the throne room.
Deriën’s jaw almost dropped. The throne room was vast, the distance between floor and ceiling greater than the height of ancient trees. Clean, shining marble made up the floor, reflecting the light of majestic windows. The owner of the voice was sitting on a huge throne – one carved from old wood, and encrusted with jewels.
She herself was a small person – no taller than Deriën’s shoulders. Her lips were ruby; her eyes held power and fathomless depth. She wore a robe: it was long, elaborate, and blood-red.
Deriën wondered if he should bow. Linaera did not, so he did not.
“Well, well, what business do you have that so urgently requires my attention?” she crooned.
Linaera spoke up first.
“I am Linaera, apprentice to the Order; I have been living in the Northern Mountains. My companion, Deriën, is an elf of the Northern Forests. We urgently seek your council – for a great army descends on this city as we speak.”
“And why should I be concerned about this particular army? Assuming of course, that you are telling the truth, since we have had no such reports.”
“Because this army is not of men, but of the dead. A necromancer has returned, and he seeks to destroy Arachadia. He kills all in his path and the mages cannot communicate while his presence is nigh. I urge you—”
“Blah blah blah. Save me the pleadings, child. I have important matters to attend to – such as my meeting with Neshvetal.” She smiled, revealing small, dainty teeth.
Linaera cursed.
“Guards, bring them to gaol. Keep them alive, mind you: Neshvetal would prefer it so, I think.”
“You bitch! You traitorous, goddamn bitch! Why—”
A guard lunged at her.
Deriën tried to protect her, attempting a draw of the sword. But these guards were no ordinary sentries: Deriën felt himself pinned by an unshakable force. He tried to cast his own magic, but the guards were faster than any normal human. Before he could so much as squeak, a blow smashed on his head.
As he fell into unconsciousness, he could vaguely hear Linaera struggling, until she too was downed in a blur of motion.
***
Neshvetal the necromancer laughed.
A man stared at the undead surrounding him, before he turned and ran, screaming.
“Master, are you sure we can just let him get away? He might tell the others.”
“Oh, I think the Arachadians know we’re coming – even they are not that oblivious. We have a battle on our hands, Leira. A battle that will be pleasing to watch.”
“But how will you get in, master?”
“I will fly in, while you commandeer the army and finish off the city. Without their Great Mage, the mages will loose hope, and we will have won. Truthfully, we can win this simply with our own army. But I want to see Nateldorth dead.”
“Very well, master.”
Dresh came into sight. Dark storm clouds hovered above, booming angrily. But even with the thick snow falling over the army, the Arachadians soon spotted them. Neshvetal’s sharp eyesight afforded him clear view as the guards stood, looking stunned.
A moment later, alarm bells could be heard.
Neshvetal flexed, and thunder drowned it out. A wind picked up, roaring over the undead. Neshvetal enjoyed his power greatly. His hand flashed, and a lightning bolt hit the city.
Screams could be heard; a fire appeared where it hit.
Neshvetal smiled.
Isn’t this going to be fun?
Behind him, the dead marched. The Revenants were foremost. Their gazes were hungry, questioning, wondering not whether they should kill the townspeople, but how they would taste.
The skeletons lead them. They were fast; strong; agile and skilled with sword or arrow. They made the physical elite.
Dragethir flew above: they dive-bombed towards their targets below. A hail of arrows greeted them, but the ones that hit caused only scratches to their thick hides.
The first Dragethir hit. It raked its claws over a man’s chest. His mail was no use; he fell over the walls, a gash marking him.
More Dragethir swarmed the watchmen. They died, their swords hanging limply by their sides.
But then the mages came.
Three dozen groups of them – battalions – climbed the walls. The Dragethir forced a momentary retreat while the mages valiantly threw fire and shock at them.
Several Dragethir were destroyed, but the losses were minimal compared to the Arachadians – and Neshvetal’s army outnumbered them.
Neshvetal clicked his fingers: with the fury of the blizzard behind them, the Revenants charged.
Soldier and mage alike were momentarily left staring. The ground rumbled like that of a great beast, signalling death, signalling the end.
The Arachadian archers raised their bows. As skilled as they were, and as mighty as their bows were crafted, their multitude of arrows had little effect on the dead. Limbs went flying and pieces of head came off, but the Revenants did not falter.
Neshvetal watched the torso of a broken woman, arrows hanging on every part of her visible body, continue dragging itself along. Its mouth remained open; its hunger had no end.
The Revenants were not fast, but they seemed unstoppable.
The mages attacked. Fireballs smashed into their ranks, burning and destroying scores of undead at a time. They continued on.
A mage – an Arch Mage, judging by his robes – motioned wildly at his cohort. Moments later, a wall of power was formed in front of the undead.
The threw themselves at it, unrelentingly. As they impacted, they were disintegrated by bolts of energy.
But there were too many. The mages staggered, and the wall collapsed.
Soon, the Revenants were at the gate. They beat and punched, but the gate held firm.
Neshvetal spotted one of the soldiers throw a cauldron of burning Naptha down. As the oily substance hit the Revenants, it stuck to the skin, and set them on fire. The Revenants were illuminated in glorious flame. It lit up the landscape, like macabre human torches.
Despite this, the Revenants did not stop – it was only once their bodies were consumed that their attacks ceased.
How patheti
c. Surely we can do better than this.
Under his command, a cohort of undead archers formed outside the castle walls.
Moments later, arrows began flying; the mages were forced to divert their power, so great was its intensity.
Leira walked out on the field, surrounded by wards and a century of skeletons. She waved her hand. The skeletons charged into the fray. Moving with unnatural speed, they began hacking at the gate – chunks of wood fell under their axes. The gate groaned, and the attack intensified.
Suddenly, Neshvetal spotted a battalion of knights emerge from the west flank. They wore dark steel armour, and carried long, deadly lances. Even the horses were mighty stallions that made the knights tower over the battlefield. The Arachadian flag – a construction of cloth emblazoning the black crown over a red background – could be seen flapping in the gale.
The knights charged. Another thunder rocked the battlefield, this one that of times gone by
The archers switched targets. Zipping arrows; screaming horses; screaming men. The knights were carved up like Winter turkeys.
Still, some remained. They valiantly jabbed their lances into the skeletons. It did not kill them, but it irritated Neshvetal.
He diverted a contingent of Revenants. They hit the knights, leaping high into the air and taking them off their horses. Crunches could be heard as bone snapped under armour, and the Revenants ate their first feast.
But the mages were readying themselves. More cohorts joined them; Neshvetal spotted the uniforms of the Silver Mages as they directed the others.
Bolts of lightning accompanied them: they cut through several Revenants at a time. Some Revenants scaled the walls; the Silver Mages concentrated, and they were ripped apart.
Neshvetal was not deterred. He had planned for the delays the mages would cause him.
Bring in the special weapon: ghouls. Ghouls were rather difficult to summon, not particularly powerful, and had an annoying tendency to eat whatever they could get their hands on. But they were resistant to magic.
They possessed sharp, deadly claws – perfect for ripping into flesh. Their eyes shone green; their stomachs were bloated, from all the flesh they had ate.
The Dragethir circled back. They took hold of the ghouls, and breathing blue cover fire, they dropped them on the walls.
The ghouls quickly went for their prize (eating a few soldiers along the way). They hit the mages’ protective wards, but instead of rebounding, they continued on. Neshvetal could see the way their movements lurched as the magic took its hold – they were not immune. But they were going an awful lot faster than what the mages could handle.
They reached the first cohort. Mages threw fireballs and thunder, which managed to destroy a few ghouls, their flesh cindering where the mages’ power was most concentrated. But more followed, and several of the mages were killed.
Just when the battle was beginning to get boring, a new foe arrived.
These were foot knights. Despite being of lower-caste than the mounted knights, they were just as well-equipped: their armour was clean, polished – the mark of a trained battle force. Their swords were long, mighty – they could kill many.
They would be useless against they Dead; they should be useless.
But when those steel teeth met undead flesh, something altogether different happened.
They lit up.
Like the wrath of avenging angels, the swords burned. They melted the Dead like the Sun does Darkness, cutting; slicing; destroying.
Ah, enchantry.
Neshvetal had heard of a particularly skilled enchanter called Elrias working for the mages; he had even considered letting him live. But now was not the time to ponder such philosophical questions.
“Leira, distract them. I will fly over and finish Nateldorth.” Leira nodded an affirmative. Neshvetal conjured his magic, and flew.
***
Jal smiled nervously as the two Dark Mages spoke next to him. He had informed Nateldorth of the whereabouts of their squad leader (who was now safely locked away in a secret holding area of Nateldorth’s). He was now trying to figure out how to get to the mage academy without alerting them.
“—So Uthis, what happened when Achevo was kidnapped? Do you know anything about who did it? Or how?” Arakesh asked.
He was a small boy, no more than a teenager. But his cold blue eyes showed cruelty, as well as the dark insanity that they all possessed. Jal also knew he was powerful, as the various close-encounters had showed him.
Jal couldn’t do magic, of course, so he had to keep a low profile to avoid that fact being noticed.
“I’m afraid I don’t, Arakesh. It all happened so fast… I certainly don’t know how they managed to find us. We tried so hard to avoid being seen, it was like they somehow just knew.”
“Hmm, my friends tell me you were using the toilet when that happened, so you couldn’t have known anything.”
“Well, that’s true, but I did arrive just as they were taking him.”
“Then you must have seen something. Perhaps what they were wearing?”
“I can tell you they weren’t wearing anything.”
“So they were naked? Fascinating…”
Jal inwardly grimaced at how that sounded.
“No, I mean, anything particular. They just looked like… peasants. Not like that’s a bad thing, I suppose.”
“Peasants are weak and to be controlled – only those of us who have embraced the darkness may be in the presence of the Queen. Regardless, the peasants were…?”
“Well, there was a guy who was leading it all. I think I spotted something on his robes, something like—”
“Wait, his robes?” asked the other one. Grunthen, a big guy with dumb brown eyes. But vicious.
“Well, he was wearing some kind of robes. I think—”
Arakesh interrupted him.
“What I think is that you have been lying to us, Uthis – if that really is your name. I think it’s about time we get some answers…”
Jal panicked.
“Look, guys—” But they attacked.
A flash of light. Dark power seeping into his soul.
Jal was thrown on the floor; his head impacted the granite floor below. His vision went blurry; his mouth gained an acrid taste. Yet he could still hear things.
But instead of the gloating he would have expected – the promises of doom, the threats of agonising torture – what he heard were the sounds of struggling.
BOOM
A moment later, the smell of ozone pervaded the air. He heard a scream. Grunthen, he guessed.
Heat could be felt along his back; the smell of charred flesh came with it. There was no more struggling.
Jal tried to move, but he was tired, so tired…
Sleep, a deceptive voice said in his head. Sleep, and you will be happy.
But he fought against it.
“Oh my god! He’s still alive! Someone help him!” a person cried out. Female, by the sound of it.
“Let me through! I can help him,” another voice stated, this one male.
Jal suddenly felt energy flowing to him. But this was not the dark power of the sorcerers; this was soft, soothing, and good. The pain lessened, and Jal’s vision began to clear.
He felt a strong arm lifting him face up.
Jal’s vision finally came back.
Shining, emerald green eyes greeted him.
***
Nateldorth was in denial.
He had refused to believe what the captured sorcerer had told him – he reasoned he was lying. After all: who could trust the ramblings of a madman?
A loud BOOM! of thunder could be heard above. The sky was so black it was almost night. Wind roared through the half-empty city, carrying with it the screams of battle. Smoke and the smell of destroyed flesh hung heavy in the air; the bodies of the slain soldiers and mages were regularly lit up by periods of lightning.
Nateldorth could not ignore the facts: the city was under attack by
an army of the dead; somehow, this army had gone by unnoticed; the Queen was nowhere to be seen. There was only one conclusion to be made.
Ashviere was a traitor.
The person he had helped from when she was a young woman – from when her mother had died, burned in a traumatic fire – and yes, the person he had held an affinity for ever since he met her – had in fact, betrayed him.
He was walking towards her palace. He still secretly hoped that she would explain everything away for him, but he knew that the real reason he was going there, was to kill her.
A guard was stationed outside the palace. He wore dark black robes, and his face was concealed. Nateldorth dispatched him without batting an eyelash.
He walked inside the palace. The vainglorious building now held promises of doom to him, promises of dread and fear and pain. He walked – slowly, anxiously – towards the throne room. He had no doubt she was there.
Two people were waiting for him. Ashviere, garbed in the same strange clothes that the guard was wearing – except that hers opened out at the neck, with blood-red lining underneath. She was smiling, looking at ease.
Beside her, a person from Nateldorth’s memories stood. He was dressed in similar clothes, and carried a sharp, jewel-encrusted knife. His smile was brilliant, and terrifying.
Neras. It cannot be.
“Hello, old man,” Ashviere said.
“Ashviere, get away from him! He’s a—”
“A necromancer, yes I know. Of course I know. After all, I am his ally. What? You think I’m the same little girl craving for your praise and attention, Nateldorth? Think you can run Arachadia all by yourself, me being your Grand Puppet? Mayhap you believe that your magic makes you superior to every other being on the planet?
“Well, guess what: I have magic too. Oh yes, don’t look so surprised. While you were busy orchestrating the lives of other people, I was practising my powers, ready for the day when I could vanquish you.”
Nateldorth spluttered.
“You’re at fault for this! Neras, have you truly gone mad? Do you wish to be beaten like you were last time?”
“I will take my vengeance on you, murderer. Yes, I too have murdered – but with reason. What threat did my wife pose to you? None at all. You killed her because you could not predict her actions, and you were afraid. Now you die,” he replied.
The Necromancer: New Edition: Republished 2016 Page 33