by Rosie Scott
411 – Cerin's battle with vampire (59th of High Star)
411 – Cerin visits Brognel for supplies (61st of High Star)
411 – First mercenary group finds and fights Cerin. Cerin's bounty is 5,000 gold (31st of Dark Star)
412 – John's arrival and betrayal (early Red Moon)
413 – Battle with Kenady Urien and mercenaries. Kenady destroys Kai's letter and steals Cerin's sentimental ring. Cerin's bounty is 10,000 gold (17th of High Star)
413 – First attempted assassination by Alderi, hired by Icilic supremacists (13th of Red Moon)
414 – Orc war party attempts to loot Cerin's cabin and burns it down. Orcs declare war (31st of New Moon)
415 – Cerin scouts out orc stronghold and seizes it by swarming it with corpses (79-80th of Red Moon)
416 – Battle with Seran Army. Army destroys Cerin's fort. Kenady Urien is finally defeated. Cerin learns his bounty is 20,000 gold and that he has risen to be Chairel's most-wanted necromancer. Cerin taunts Sirius with a message to try harder (42nd of Red Moon)
417 – Fire (The Six Elements Book 1) begins (34th of New Moon)
417 – Cerin agrees to join Kai north of Seran Forest (20th of High Star)
Teaser of Fire...
The mysterious man stood in the same place he'd been in, his head tilted down beneath his black hood. His right hand reached for his scythe, pulling it off his belt as the ground near his boots broke.
Crack! Dirt erupted from the broken earth, before a single, bony hand rose from the ground, followed by a forearm, then a humerus. Dark energy connected the bones in the place of muscle and tendon. The arm bent at its elbow, the hand falling to the ground to help push the rest of the skeleton out of the earth.
It was only when I felt light-headed that I realized I'd stopped breathing. Before us, in dozens of places in the field and along the outer edge of the forest, the dead were rising. Skeletons of humans, orcs, and animals alike rose from their slumber to heed a necromancer's call. Partially decomposed corpses gathered around their master, leaking a sludge of brownish-yellow fluids as they shambled into place. One particularly bloated zombie was missing its entire right leg, but was still determined to heed the request and crawled slowly toward the man in black, leaving a trail of decomposition from the stump at its hip.
My eyes were glued to the sight. This was the type of thing I'd been fascinated with reading about my entire life. Here necromancy was, just before me. Somehow even more intriguing and gruesome than I could have ever imagined. In seconds, one man had raised an army willing to fight blindly against all the odds against an ordinarily unstoppable force.
The necromancer reached behind him, pulling a long, orcish sword from his belt, possibly looted from an earlier enemy. Moving his head to his left and away from us, he held the blade out to the nearby skeleton of an orc. As if the orc could read its master's thoughts, the skeleton reached out, taking the sword and readying itself for battle.
Then, the horde of orcs broke through the border of the forest, spreading out over the field like a green plague. The sickly hisses and gurgles of the undead rose as a collective battle cry to meet the roars of the orcs as the two small armies collided.
The necromancer fought among his minions, clashing his scythe with orcish metal, switching from one-handed to two-handed as he utilized magic and melee. All around him, the dead fought with limitless energy and no fear. Though the dead were plentiful, they weren't nearly as strong as the heavily muscled orcs. The skeletons could shatter in an explosion of bones with one heavy strike of a club, and it happened numerous times, leaving the ground scattered with bones from various bodies. A few orcs were deceased, fresh blood staining the grasses below. The undead, however, were much fewer in number. Those that had lasted this long would loot weapons off of the dead orcs, equipping themselves with better weapons as they became available as if they had the brains to plan.
The clang of metal called my attention back to the necromancer himself as he held his own against a hulking beast of an orc with a two-handed ax. The hooded figure switched from using his scythe with both hands to just the right hand before he thrust his left arm out. The crackling noise from earlier popped and sizzled in the air as a fog of black energy siphoned through the air from the orc to the man.
He's leeching. It was a sight to behold. The man had raised an army, fought alongside it, and now regenerated the energy he'd lost with the enemy's own life. As the energy rapidly seeped from the orc's chest, the brute became slower, clumsier. Finally, with no wound on his body from an enemy weapon, the orc fell, dead, its life harvested from its very soul.
More orcs fell, and even more undead. It was now the necromancer and just a handful of undead against a dozen or so orcs, though more enemies piled out of the forest. The shambling footsteps from earlier shook the ground until a giant monstrosity of a creature exited the woods and let out a deafening roar.
I stared at the creature, stiff from shock. The word ogre came to mind, but I wasn't sure why. Perhaps I had seen a drawing of the creature. Either way, it was one of the ugliest things I'd ever seen. Its head rivaled the trees at the edge of the forest, so the creature was at least thirty feet high. Its skin was also green, though it was a lighter, milkier color than its smaller orc allies. It was muscular and fat all at once, its eyes spread far apart on either side of its massive head and uneven in both shape and size. It suffered from such a hunchback that the ribbing of its spine stuck through the skin of its upper back, the bone brown with exposure. It wielded a club that was simply three meters of a tree trunk, the bark still attached. Thick leather straps over its shoulders and around its waist led to a backpack of sorts built out of wood where it carried war supplies and extra weapons. It also wore a pathetic excuse for a waist cloth, the short pieces of fur and leather not doing enough to hide the creature's dangling genitalia.
The necromancer barely moved as the ogre roared again, so loud and brutally that it shook the trees nearby and sprayed the creature's brownish saliva in multiple directions. Without flinching, the man lowered both arms toward the ground. The same black energy from earlier formed and released in tendrils, though this time, they stayed above ground, attracted to the fresh corpses. The bodies of the orcs rose again. Living orcs nearby were either enraged or afraid at witnessing brother and kin rise against them, and their battle cries became desperate and angry.
The rattling of bones called my attention back to the ground, where black tendrils dragged the bones of the original army back together over the distances that they'd been separated. All the skeletons that had their pieces scattered were put back together and rose for a second battle. The decomposed zombies, some of which had been splattered in multiple chunks of flesh and acid, spliced back together via the dark magic.
Just like that, the undead army was not only put back together again, it was doubled, and the intimidating act of using their own against them worked in the necromancer's favor. Orcs were distracted by having to fight their own and made mistakes that quickly got them killed. The ogre, however, remained unfazed. He shambled forward, swiping his trunk-sized club across his path, scattering a handful of the dead, exploding boils of zombies and scattering bones. The giant's attention was on the man, and his undead minions understood this. As they slaughtered orc after orc, the dead moved in to protect their master, rushing the ogre in such a way that any creature with a brain would know was suicide. Skeletons hacked away at the ogre's shins with orc weapons, and even the zombie with no leg from earlier had a hold on the giant's foot, gnawing with gusto at his heel.
The ogre paid no mind to this. With his eye on the collection of undead before him, he raised his club for another swipe. Then, the necromancer pulled another surprise out of his hat.
He thrust his hands toward the group of undead, just as the club was in its downward arc toward scattering them all. One by one, a glowing, clearish-white orb surrounded each of them before the impact of the club. This time, the club hit but was met
with such resistance that it might as well have hit a stone wall. The skeletons and zombies stumbled back a few feet from the impact but were otherwise unharmed and continued to fight.
He's shielding them. I was outrageously confused. That was impossible. Wasn't it? Shielding was a life spell. The necromancer had clearly used death magic, and now he used the element of life.
In all my studies at the Seran University, I'd never heard of such a thing. Life and death were the rarest elements. It was unusual enough for someone to have access to one, and I'd never heard of a mage who could wield both. Of course, I supposed that even if they could, they wouldn't. Given that necromancy was banned, if a healer could also use death magic, he or she may never know it.
Either way, now that I knew this mage was a dual caster capable of both life and death magic, I was both intrigued and terrified. He just may as well have been unstoppable. Now, I almost felt sorry for the ogre. It had no chance.
The necromancer ensured he kept his minions shielded with an outstretched left hand, before holding his right out toward the ogre and leeching from its life. The creature swiped at the undead again and again with its club but became frustrated as it got nowhere. For each swipe was mostly negated by the shields, and its own life energy was being used against it, being sucked away from its body just to fuel its enemy's defense.
The minutes dragged on as the giant refused to give into its fate, despite becoming fatigued. By this point, the fight had lasted the better part of an hour, and one would have never have figured it given the energy of the man clad in black. The necromancer hadn't lost a thing. He'd regained everything he had lost through the smart use of his magic.
He would be an amazing ally. Despite knowing I shouldn't feel such a way given the law of the land, I did. And as the ogre swayed, light-headed and weakened, I stood up in the forest, my legs screaming with aches from maintaining the same crouched position for so long.
“Silas,” I said, watching the fight before me come to a close. “Loose an arrow.”
Silas stood up just in front of me. “At which one?”
The question amused me. I understood why he'd asked it. “The giant.”
Silas took a step toward the edge of the forest so his arrow would be free of any obstruction. He pulled an arrow from his quiver, raised his bow, and nocked his ammunition. Eyeing the ogre in the field ahead, he tilted the bow upward.
The arrow flew, barely making a sound as it arced toward the giant. Silas's aim was true; the arrow pierced the skin between two vertebrae of the ogre's spinal cord, paralyzing him. The giant stiffened and began to fall. The necromancer and his army scattered around the corpse's trajectory. When the ogre hit the ground, the earth shook and dirt clouded upward from the edges of its body, coating the nearby skeletons in brown dust.
The necromancer stared at the ogre's back and noted the pearl-white arrow that stuck out from it. He glanced toward us, his face cast in shadow. A wisp of pure black hair waved out of the bottom of his hood. The minions still nearby turned their attention to us, but they made no move to attack. None of them made any movement at all.
I walked forward on aching legs, emerging from the forest to show myself and try to establish trust. I heard the others behind me warning me and cursing me in hushed tones, but I paid no mind. I took a chance on this man not being as insane as some of the necromancers of legend. I was all too aware that despite being unable to see his face, he could see me. He knew what I looked like. If he didn't kill me here, he could find or follow me, and I wouldn't have been able to pick him out of a crowd.
But it was a chance I felt I needed to take, regardless.
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