Unconventional Heroes 2 - Two Necromancers, an Army of Golems, and a Demon Lord

by L. G. Estrella

  “Just call her Vicky. It’s easier,” Timmy said as Gerald gaped at the breach of protocol. Vicky pouted. “Don’t give me that look. We’d be here all day if you went through all of your titles. What is so important that you had to come in person?”

  “Spoilsport.” Vicky threw another grape at him and stuck her tongue out. “I’m here to talk about your next mission.” She waved one hand, and the light around her coalesced into an image of a mountainous region with several towns. “This is the area where your next mission will be taking place. Approximately two days ago, we received word that a certain Council-sponsored operation in this area had gone awry. We currently have scouts searching for the target. Once, it’s been located, we want you to deal with it and salvage whatever you can.”

  Avraniel pointed at the image. “That’s a lot of ground to cover. You haven’t found the target yet?”

  “The target is extremely mobile and well suited for travel in inhospitable terrain. We are looking, but I suspect we won’t find anything until the target is ready to show itself. At that point, your intervention will almost certainly be necessary to contain the situation.” Vicky’s expression darkened. “We’ve had more trouble along the southern border. We can’t afford to move troops away from there. But you, Timmy, have troops of your own, even if they are zombies.”

  “Who or what is the target?” Timmy asked. “Because you’ve been a little light on the details, and this whole thing sounds like a lot of trouble.”

  “Who cares?” Avraniel grinned and held up a small ball of fire. “As long as I get to blow something up, I’m happy.”

  “Don’t worry, I have a feeling you’ll get to blow up a lot of things.” Vicky gestured again. An image of a vaguely humanoid golem appeared. It didn’t look particularly threatening with its box-like limbs, head, and torso. It looked more like something out of a child’s imagination. “That is your target.”

  “A golem?” Timmy scoffed. “Seriously? I don’t think you need our help for that. Assuming that it’s roughly the same size as a person, Katie could take that thing out without breaking a sweat.”

  Katie bristled. He made that sound like an insult. Her rat reached for an arrow, but she stopped it. They had company. They could always go after her master once Vicky had left.

  “You’re right. One golem wouldn’t be a problem for us, but there won’t be only one. You see, several years ago, the Council decided to commission the creation of a self-replicating golem: a golem capable of building other golems, which would in turn build even more golems. The idea was sound. You could start off with one golem and end up with an army. But there were… issues. We terminated the program, but one of the golems was able to escape our custody and flee into the mountains. By the time we locate it, we could be facing thousands of golems. The towns nearby would be under immediate threat, and the entire region could fall if the golem is allowed to go unchecked.”

  “The Council tried to build a self-replicating golem?” Timmy shook his head. “Who came up with that brilliant idea? That’s even stupider than the time I accidentally re-animated an ancient necromancer.”

  Katie shuddered. That had not been a pleasant experience. “It took us three days to kill him again. He kept reanimating corpses to fight us off.” She paused. “We have a lot of corpses lying around.”

  Vicky folded her hands together. “I’m sure you do. James and my predecessor were the ones who pushed for the project. They saw it as a way to increase the size of our military. They also believed that it would provide them with a perfect way of dealing with necromancers. For that reason, James originally referred to the project as Project ST.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Project Slaughter Timmy.” Vicky rolled her eyes. “Yes, he really doesn’t like you. Unfortunately, the dwarf we contracted to carry out the project went rogue and absconded with a sizeable portion of the project’s funding.” She sighed. “Yes, paying a dwarf up front was not one of the Council’s finer moments. Still, we’ll deal with him later. We want you to deal with the army that the escaped golem will likely have when it finally decides to show itself. We would also like you to salvage whatever you can. Given how much the project has already cost us, we need to make sure we get our money’s worth.”

  “Wait…” A grin slipped onto Timmy’s face, and Katie felt a matching one slip onto hers. Unless she was mistaken… “Are you saying that I get to march an army of my zombies across Everton to pick a fight with an army of golems that the Council commissioned, saving Everton and making James look like a colossal fool, and I’ll be working toward a pardon and getting paid?”

  “I take it you accept?” Vicky chuckled. “I’ll have a messenger drake come by with all of the details and paperwork, and I’ll be keeping in touch with Gerald through the scrying sphere. I’ll let you know where the golem is once we’ve found it.” She got up and gave all of them a cheerful wave. “Enjoy your dinner. I’ll see you later.” And then, like it was the most normal thing in the world, she walked through the wall and vanished, setting off another host of alarms.

  Avraniel snorted. “She didn’t look that tough. I could have taken her.”

  “Funny how you waited until she was gone to say that.” Timmy ignored the vicious glare she gave him. “And that’s only one of her lower-level astral projections. Believe me, she can handle herself in battle. You do not want to pick a fight with someone who spent years evangelising in some of the most hostile places imaginable. And I should warn you that the Lord of the Blessed Dawn has her back. Unless you’re prepared to fight off spirits from his realm too – and who knows what else she’s got under contract or alliance – you should leave her alone.”

  “I could still kick her ass,” the elf insisted. “And twice on Sundays too. Enough fire beats anything.”

  “So,” Katie said. “How did you two become friends, master? She mentioned having to dig you out of some rubble.”

  He made a face. “Did she have to mention that?” He sighed. “Before I got my shovels to work, I tried a lot of different things to make my earth magic work better. Most of them didn’t turn out so well. When we met, she was still mastering her magic too. She didn’t know it at the time, but I was already familiar with astral projection – my master had similar magic. I gave her a few pointers, she helped me with my homework, and the rest is history. As for James, she’s not telling the whole story. Their families have been feuding for generations – something about her great, great, great something or other trying to kill his great, great, great something or other over some kind of affair involving a vampire or a goat, or possibly a vampire goat. No one can remember the exact details. Now, that’s enough questions. We need to begin preparing.”

  “Preparing?” Avraniel had a sunny smile on her face. Katie was fairly sure that the elf was imagining all the damage she could do now that she had another mission to go on. They’d be lucky if all she burned down was a forest.

  “Yes.” Timmy rubbed his hands together gleefully – a gesture that Katie and her rat copied. “We have corpses to order, zombies to make, abyssal horrors to talk to and… that thing.”

  “That thing?” Katie’s eyes lit up, and she leapt to her feet. “Do you mean…?” If he did, she’d been waiting for ages.

  “Yes.” Timmy cackled. “I mean that thing.”

  Katie cackled too. It was about time. This was going to be great.

  “Do I even want to know?” Gerald asked. He was paler than usual, which was saying something. Then again, he was a timid person. Katie doubted he was looking forward to fighting off an army of killer golems with a horde of zombies. She, however, was very much looking forward to it. She’d never fought an army of golems before, never mind with a horde of zombies.

  “Hmm…” Timmy pursed his lips and then nodded. “Yes, I think it’s better if you didn’t know. It would only worry you and make it hard for you to sleep at night.” He turned to Katie. “Come on, we need to start working on that thing.” He c
alled for one of their servants and handed the man a note. Katie took a peek at it. It was a missive to one of their contacts in the black market. “Send that off as quickly as you can.”

  And with that, they headed out of the dining room. Timmy walked, but Katie skipped until a snicker from her master reminded her that skipping was not something aspiring necromancers were supposed to do. She scowled and continued to skip right along. She could skip if she wanted to, and if her master continued to snicker, the rat on her shoulder would introduce him to a few of its arrows.

  * * *

  Timmy kept to a leisurely pace, well aware of how much shorter Katie was than him. She would never, ever admit that her smaller stature made it hard for her to keep up if he walked at full speed. The rat on her shoulder was also glaring at him, and he had a feeling there were at least a dozen more watching from the shadows. They could be fantastically creepy when they put their minds to it, and they did not like seeing Katie upset.

  Their destination was one of the largest of the many laboratories the castle had, a massive chamber where even a giant could stand without hitting its head on the roof. It was deep beneath the castle, in one of the caves that branched off from the lightless chasms full of unbridled horror that riddled the area. The laboratory itself was not lightless – unlike Sam’s people he needed light to see – and he’d cleared out most of the horrors that dwelt nearby. He couldn’t get rid of all of them, but they’d learned to keep their distance. A magical shovel could be so handy.

  It was there, largely free from interference, that he worked on the most prized of his creations. It was kept behind countless locks and seals of protection that only the most powerful of mages had any hope of breaking. He deactivated all of the seals and opened all of the locks as Katie went back to skipping beside him. It was oddly terrifying to see her so cheerful. At some point, the rat on her shoulder had also changed. Perhaps they took it in shifts? The one with the bow was gone. In its place was one of the smaller rats. The little fellow was cleaning its claws with a knife that was bigger than it was. Timmy almost laughed before remembering that as funny as it appeared, the rat could probably kill an elephant with that knife without too much difficulty. The rat caught him staring and smiled. It was a very toothy smile, a smile that would not have looked the least bit out of place on Avraniel’s face.

  “Do I get to help this time?” Katie asked. Her eyes gleamed with pure malevolent joy, and Timmy fought the urge to pat her on the head. She was going to grow up one of these days, and he’d have his very own scion of darkness on his hands. It was almost enough to bring a tear to his eye. Thankfully, he wasn’t quite that sentimental. He settled for ruffling her hair instead and quickly ducked under the shadowy claw that tried to tear off his head.

  “Yes, it’s about time you learned.” He grinned at the expression of outrage on her face. Then he ruffled her hair again, earning himself a vicious, vicious glare as he turned back to the doors and pushed them open. “Follow me. Hey!”

  Timmy stared. His beloved creation was surrounded by a bunch of foot-wide spheres made up of pulsing, protoplasmic flesh. They were the children of whatever inter-dimensional race of world-rending horrors Sam belonged to. He grabbed his shovel and waved it around to shoo them off. “Get out of here! You know you’re not supposed to be here!” They buzzed through the air around him, their bodies changing shape and colour. “How did you even get in here anyway?” One of the little horrors bumped Timmy in the back of the head, and he poked it with one finger, sending it scuttling away.

  “They must have used their powers to get in.” Katie pushed a few of the miniature horrors away with her shadows. They trilled and backed away. One of them crept forward again, only to retreat when her rat brandished its knife at it. “Whatever they’re made of isn’t supposed to exist in our world, remember? The usual rules don’t apply to them unless they let them.”

  “I guess.” Timmy narrowed his eyes at one of the spheres as it floated by. A single opalescent eye formed and glared back at him. He recognised this one. It was the ringleader of this band of miscreants. “I’ve got my eyes on you.” In response, the horror formed more eyes and gnashed its teeth. It extruded a tentacle and waved the appendage at him in what Timmy assumed was a rude gesture. He prodded it with his shovel. “Don’t even think about it. You’re in enough trouble as it is.” At least they hadn’t eaten their way through the enchanted tarpaulin that covered his creation. He raised his voice and flared his magic. “Sam, could you come over here?”

  His shout summoned a much larger protoplasmic horror. This one was still vaguely spherical in shape, but since he wasn’t making any effort to control his size, he was much larger, a good five yards across. Sam floated through the air and bobbed back and forth as he phased in and out of their dimension. Dozens of his opalescent eyes blinked slowly before rolling over to lock onto Timmy. With a muffled pop, he extruded several tentacles and settled into the physical world, a few of his dagger-teethed mouths lolling open to taste the air. He gave several sharp trills and began to wave his tentacles around. Naturally, each tentacle was of the barbed variety, studded with half a dozen smaller eyes, and ended in a claw-like appendage.

  Timmy sighed. Sam could form vocal cords and use human speech, but he was much more comfortable using his native language, a bizarre mix of tentacle gestures, shape and colour changes, and telepathy. It was a language that Timmy had only learned after painstaking research and effort, not least because he only had two arms and a distinct inability to change his shape and colour. There was also the small problem of Sam accidentally melting his brain if their minds touched too closely. One of his enemies had actually met his end that way. It had not been a pretty way to die. The reports Timmy had read suggested that the other man’s head had melted before exploding.

  “The kids were in here again,” Timmy said as Sam pulsed and waved his tentacles in an expression of curiosity and happiness at Timmy and Katie’s visit. “Can you talk to them? They’re not supposed to be in here, and they know it. I can’t have them eating my creations before they’re done.”

  Sam trilled and became more of an ellipsoid as a vague feeling of inhuman hunger rippled through the shallow telepathic link between them. The kids had been hungry and curious about the world beyond their lightless chasms. They’d only recently gained the ability to take on solid physical forms for extended periods of time, and they were eager to experience new sensations.

  “I see. I’ll be sure to send more food down here, so they can taste it. I’ll send down some other things too, you know, to help them get used to having bodies and all that. They’re also welcome to wander around outside, so long as they don’t go too far or eat anybody.” Timmy paused. “Unless they’re bad. Then they should totally eat them. They could eat a few animals though. We’ve got that rabbit infestation going on in one of the woods a few miles from here.” He rummaged through his pockets and came up with a list. “Here’s a list of what animals they’re allowed to eat and how many they can eat.”

  Sam signalled his thanks and tucked the list away. Timmy preferred not to think of exactly where the list went as it vanished inside Sam’s body.

  “By the way, we’ve got another mission coming up. I don’t know when exactly, but I’ll be taking most of the zombies, and it’ll probably take a while. I need you to look after things while I’m gone. No causing the apocalypse while I’m away. I’ll leave instructions for the servants, but they’ve met you before. If you need anything, talk to them. But try not to terrify them too much.” Timmy paused. He was forgetting something. “Oh, except the new guy. He hasn’t met you yet, and the others have been taking bets about how terrified he’ll be when he meets you for the first time. Have fun, but don’t give him a heart attack or anything. It’s tough finding people who don’t mind working here even though the pay is good.”

  Sam conveyed a feeling of indignation through some frantic tentacle waving, turning red, and transforming into a cube. He was, he explained
as he turned bright purple, a perfectly friendly protoplasmic horror. He hadn’t eaten someone who didn’t deserve it in years. The servants had no reason to fear him, especially the cooks. If he ate them, then who would make cake?

  Katie gave Sam a pat on what Timmy assumed was his back. Did cubes have backs? “It’s okay. I know you’re friendly. If someone thinks you’re mean, it’s only because they haven’t gotten to know you.” She grinned. “If you want, you can come up to my room later, and we can read something. You’ll have to make yourself smaller though. You won’t fit on my bed like this.”

  Timmy cleared his throat. Trust his apprentice to pamper a protoplasmic horror. Still, it was good that she and Sam got along. Some of the castle’s previous tenants had met their ends after offending Sam’s people. “We’re about to get started, Sam. Do you want to stay and watch?” Sam signalled that he had other business to attend to – like lecturing the kids. “Okay then.” Timmy reached over and pressed his hand against a seal inscribed on the wall. The magical crystals that lit the room flared to life as the enchanted tarpaulin retracted. “Katie… behold!”

  “Wow!” Katie gasped, and the rat on her shoulder gave a squeak of agreement. Timmy nodded to himself. Good. They should be impressed. “That’s awesome.”

  Indeed it was.

  Before them lay a partly finished zombie titan, a colossus of unrivalled zombie might. When it was finished it would stand roughly three hundred feet tall, a zombie capable of crushing anything that stood against it. Armies would tremble at its advance, the earth would crack beneath its feet, and Timmy finally – finally – had a reason to use it that wouldn’t result in the Council sending an army of their own to destroy it and imprison him. He fought the urge to do a little jig around the laboratory. Oh, yes, he had an excuse to bring out the big stuff, and he was going to do exactly that. Seeing that Katie was still staring at the zombie titan, he gave in, dancing around behind her as she and her rodent continued to stare at the zombie titan in awe and wonder.