Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf

by L. G. Estrella

  “I’m guessing the elf we’re after was there.”

  “Oh, she was. We didn’t see her at first, but there was no missing what she’d done.” Timmy shook his head and stared into the campfire. “I’d never seen that much fire before. It was as if the whole forest was burning. She burnt that frost dragon to death, and I don’t think she even had to try. Being the sensible person that I am, I wanted to retreat. But my master decided to go and pick a fight.”

  Katie hid a laugh behind one hand. “That’s when she kicked your asses, right?”

  “Yes, Katie, but mind your language. My master was a brilliant swordsman, but she more than held her own against him with a pair of daggers. I didn’t have this shovel with me, but I did have one of my prototypes. I almost got her over the back of the head, but all that did was make her mad. And that’s when she started throwing fire everywhere – and I mean everywhere.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “My master used his magic to try and tear her soul out of her body. It didn’t work, but it did buy me enough time to destroy the hill we were fighting on. That gave us the distraction we needed to get away.”

  “She sounds formidable.” Gerald was writing furiously in one of his notepads. “Can you tell me anything more about her magic? How hot was her fire?”

  “It was hot, maybe even as hot as dragon fire. She knew how to control it too. I didn’t see her shape it the way that Katie can shape her shadows, but she was definitely able to guide it around.”

  “She sounds very dangerous.” Katie’s brows furrowed, and she tapped her fingers on her leg.

  “She was very dangerous.” Timmy patted Katie on the head. She was so cute when she was trying to work out how to beat someone. She responded by trying to bite his hand off. “Okay, that’s enough talking. You’ve got your story, now go to sleep.”

  “Fine.” Katie huffed and settled into her bedroll. Monet took up a position on a nearby tree stump while Rembrandt went to patrol the perimeter. “But you better not fall asleep while you’re keeping watch, master. I don’t want any bandits or angry villagers sneaking up on us.”

  “Relax, even if I fall asleep, our zombies are also keeping watch. We’ll be fine.” Besides, the villagers were too terrified of Gerald and his paperwork to do anything, and any bandits dumb enough to try robbing them deserved to be mauled by their zombies or stabbed by Rembrandt.

  They continued their journey north, stopping briefly in another small village to pick up some extra supplies. The villagers took one look at their escort of zombies and all but threw the supplies at them before running for the hills. It was oddly gratifying.

  “You know, they never gave us the chance to pay them.” Katie cackled and rubbed her hands together. “So maybe –”

  “We’ll leave the money in the village square,” Gerald said. His voice took on a fatherly tone. “I know you’re a necromancer, Katie, but stealing is wrong.”

  Katie gave Gerald the most unimpressed look imaginable. Timmy sniggered. Katie had helped him create some of the world’s most terrifying abominations. She was certainly not averse to some creative cost cutting when the situation called for it. “Fine, we’ll do it your way.”

  And so they left the money in the village square before continuing north. Throughout their journey, Timmy kept a group of zombies ahead of them as his zombie wyverns kept watch from above. Finally, they reached the edge of the Frostwood.

  “I guess it is impressive.” Katie eased her horse to a stop. “The pictures I’ve seen in books don’t quite do it justice.”

  The Frostwood was one of the most ancient forests in the world. Its trees were enormous, living bulwarks of wood, their branches dappled with ice and snow. Even the smallest of them was as thick as Timmy was tall, and the largest rose hundreds of feet into the air. Unlike the younger forests of the south, there was something distinctly menacing about the Frostwood. It was there in the shadows cast by the titan trees, and it was there in the sibilant hiss of the wind through millennia-old branches. Inhuman eyes tracked their every move as they followed a rough trail deeper into the forest. Strange tracks littered the edges of the path, and something darted through the trees above them.

  “Be careful.” Timmy kept one hand on the reins and the other on his shovel. “This forest doesn’t like necromancy.”

  Katie shivered, but not from the cold. “I can tell. My zombies feel so weak and sluggish here.” She cast a furtive look at the trees on either side of her. Something was watching them, she was sure of it. “At least there are plenty of shadows here for me to use.”

  The deeper they went into the forest, the worse it got. There wasn’t even a lick of wind, yet the trees around them rustled and shifted from side to side. Timmy thought he might have heard them speaking in low, rumbling tones, but he couldn’t be sure. The trail narrowed, and he caught a glimpse of amber eyes and jagged teeth. He frowned and ordered their zombies to fall into a tighter formation around them. The forest was not happy with them, and those eyes and teeth had belonged to a wolf almost as big as his horse.

  It didn’t help that the forest was practically holy ground. Keeping his zombies active was taking much more of his magic than usual, and the beads of sweat on Katie’s brow showed that she was feeling the strain too. It would have been easier on them both if they let their zombies fall apart, but the elf they were searching for was too strong to beat in a fair fight. At the very least, their zombies could still serve as a distraction.

  It took them another two days before they saw any sign of their target. And for those two days, the forest had made its displeasure known in ways that ranged from the truly disturbing to the downright petty. The giant wolves that lingered just beyond the light of their campfire were definitely disturbing. But making the trees bend their branches to dump snow on their heads was just petty. There might even have been an elf or two around when that happened since Timmy was certain that he’d heard someone laugh.

  Ahead of them, the ground was blackened and charred. The trees were still standing, but their branches, leaves, and bark had all been burnt away. The smell of smoke and ash filled the air.

  “Do you think this was her?” Katie poked at the ground with her shadows. In a few places, the earth had been melted into glass.

  “I think so.” Steam rose from the ground. The elf couldn’t be far then. “This is what happens when someone picks a fight with her.”

  “Right.” Katie sighed. “We’re all going to die horribly, aren’t we?”

  “We’ll be fine.” Gerald puffed out his chest in what Timmy assumed was supposed to be a reassuring manner. However, the tremor in the other man’s voice painted a very different picture. He was scared out of his mind, and Timmy couldn’t blame him. “As long as the three of us work together, I’m sure we can manage.”

  “What are you basing that on?” Katie jabbed one finger at Gerald. “My master and his master barely survived fighting this elf. I’m only a kid, and I doubt you’ve ever been in a fight.”

  Gerald sagged in his saddle. “When you put it that way, it does sound depressing. But we are acting on behalf of the Council.” He brandished a copy of the Council’s newsletter. “I’m certain that we can negotiate with her. I was able to negotiate with you and your master, wasn’t I?”

  “That’s because we’re reasonable. She isn’t.” Something tickled the very edges of Timmy’s awareness. One of his zombies wanted him to look through its eyes. “Ah, it seems like one of my zombies has spotted her – oh.”

  They all stared as a bolt of flame raced up into the sky. The zombie wyvern above them dissolved in a cloud of fire. Little bits of ash rained down. Timmy gulped. His zombie wyverns were some of his finest creations, designed to shrug off arrows and withstand multiple hits from ballistae. The elf had reduced it to ash with one shot, and he’d barely even sensed any build up of magic. In other words, they were in big, big trouble.

  “I guess she knows we’re here now.” Katie nodded sagely. “A
s my master, I think you should be the one to take the lead.”

  “Yes.” Gerald joined Katie in throwing Timmy under the proverbial rampaging dragon. “You do have the most experience against her. Think of it as a show of loyalty to the Council.”

  “You’re both jerks.” Timmy reached for his shovel. He always felt more confident with it in his hands. “We have to leave our horses here. I think her attack came from the ridge up ahead, and I don’t think they can manage this terrain. They’ll make us a bigger target too. Katie, have your zombies come up from the left, and I’ll have mine come up from the right. I’ll use my two remaining zombie wyverns to keep watch. We need to box her in and then attack while she’s occupied with the zombies.”

  “We’re supposed to negotiate with her.” Gerald flipped through one of his folders.

  “We can negotiate with her after she’s restrained and no longer capable of burning all of us alive.”

  “We could wait until nightfall.” Gerald clutched at his grey robes. If he fiddled with them any harder, he’d tear the fabric.

  Katie scowled. “That’s not a good idea. Everything I’ve read suggests that elves have exceptional night vision. We don’t have that luxury.”

  “Our best chance is to strike now.” Timmy climbed off his horse. “The more time we give her to plan, the worse off we’ll be. Come on.”

  They made their way toward the ridge. It was a good thing that the trees were still mostly intact, or they’d have been seen immediately. They needed to stay out of sight and walk as lightly as possible. If the elf spotted them, they were all dead.

  It had been a while since Timmy had snuck around anything more dangerous than a graveyard, but he hadn’t forgotten his master’s lessons. Nearby, Katie stepped on a twig, and the three of them froze. When several seconds passed without fiery death, he breathed a sigh of relief. That was his fault as much as Katie’s. He’d been lax when it had come to her stealth training. The rats could probably have turned her invisible if they worked together, but he doubted their magic would last long enough to get her to the top of the ridge. No, it was better to save that trick for when they got close enough to do something.

  The big surprise was Gerald. The bureaucrat was doing very well. Maybe there was more to paperwork than Timmy thought, or maybe Gerald was just really, really eager to not die.

  “Keep in contact with your zombies, Katie. We need to keep the elf distracted.” Timmy’s own zombies were familiar presences in the back of his mind. With a bit more effort, he could even see through their eyes. It was something he excelled at, and not even his master had been able to link himself to his zombies as easily as Timmy could.

  One of his zombie wyverns spotted the elf moving along the top of the ridge. She was searching for them. Her gazed drifted toward them, and he ordered the wyvern to attack in a bid to distract her. The creature drew her gaze away from them, but she killed it in spectacular fashion. A sweeping gesture of her arms called up ribbons of flame that sliced through the wyvern’s wings and then curved around to blast through its body. The remains of the creature crashed to the ground, burnt beyond any hope of repair.

  “Well, there goes my second zombie wyvern.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.” Gerald laughed nervously. He wasn’t a big fan of zombies, but he wished they’d brought more.

  “Keep moving.” Timmy quickened his pace. “The elf was moving along the top of the ridge. If she disappears back into the forest, we’re in trouble. Nobody catches an elf in the forest.”

  Katie split her attention between running and managing her zombies. Although they were weaker in the forest than usual, these zombies were some of her best. Each one had been painstakingly crafted out of freshly harvested corpses and reinforced with metal bones and magic. But guiding them was tricky. She wasn’t used to moving so much at the same time, and she had to keep them on a tight leash to make sure they weren’t seen by the elf.

  “Watch where you’re going.” Katie yelped as Timmy yanked her away from the tree she’d almost run into. On her shoulder, Rembrandt made a few noises. He wanted her to be more careful. “Have you seen the elf yet?”

  Katie’s eyes took on a faraway stare as she opened her mind to her zombies. A regular zombie was little more than a shambling corpse. Even in the forest, these zombies were stronger and faster than a normal person. They rushed toward the top of the ridge. The elf was right there. “I’ve found her. Now what?”

  Timmy bit his lip. “I was hoping that our zombies would get there at the same time, but we can’t let her get away. Stop her.”

  “I’ll try.”

  The command echoed from Katie’s mind to her zombies: attack. The zombies sprang at the elf. A dozen zombies of this calibre would have been enough to stop almost anyone in their tracks. The elf needed only a few moments to dispatch them. She put an arrow through the head of the first zombie, which wasn’t that bad until the arrow exploded. She then repeated the feat three more times in quick succession, reducing four of Katie’s zombies to mangled lumps of burnt flesh. And the scariest part was that the elf had been smiling the whole time, a crazy, utterly deranged smile.

  The remaining zombies closed in with their swords drawn, and the elf swapped her bow out for a pair of daggers. The zombies weren’t especially skilled – they didn’t have the brains or muscle control for true swordsmanship – but they were inhumanly strong and fast. The elf ghosted through a storm of blows, and all Katie saw was a flash of her daggers before her zombies started to fall. In less than a minute, the elf had sliced and diced her way through all eight remaining zombies. To add insult to injury, she even struck a pose at the end, sheathing her daggers with a flourish. It made Katie want to punch her in the face or sic Rembrandt and Monet on her. Those zombies had taken Katie ages to put together!

  “What happened?” Timmy asked. His own zombies were almost there.

  “She killed all of my zombies, and she made it look easy.” Katie winced and rubbed her temple. There was always some backlash when a zombie under her personal control died. “What do we do now?”

  “Keep moving. We’re almost there. I’ll send my zombies in along with my last zombie wyvern. Whatever happens, make sure you make it to the top of the ridge.” Timmy glanced at Gerald. The bureaucrat was starting to struggle now. Apparently, large amounts of paperwork were not conducive to high levels of cardiovascular fitness. “And try to keep Gerald alive.”

  The last of Timmy’s zombie wyverns wheeled about and dove at the elf. He used every ounce of his skill to guide the beast around the brilliant shafts of flame that the elf tossed up, but he had no answer for the wave of fire that she threw as the wyvern closed in. The zombie came apart at the seams, but he poured more of his magic into it, straining to keep it together for a few more seconds. It slammed into the ridge, and the elf was forced to scramble out of the way. That gave his other zombies the opening he’d been waiting for. They charged the elf together.

  “Run!” Timmy pointed at the top of the ridge. “My zombies won’t keep her occupied for long. We need to get to the top of the ridge now.”

  Timmy wasn’t a Grand Necromancer for nothing. His zombies were even better than Katie’s, and he had no problems micromanaging all twelve of them at once. He might have favoured the shovel, but his master had made sure he knew how to handle a sword. It was a testament to his swordsmanship and his control over his zombies that they lasted as long as they did.

  The elf darted forward, a dagger in each hand, and immediately parried the strike of the first zombie with one dagger before she sliced its head off with the other. The zombie toppled back and then caught fire. The second zombie actually managed to block three of her strikes before a kick to the chest caved in its ribcage and set it alight. Timmy hissed. It seemed like she could project her magic through her entire body and her weapons.

  The other zombies closed in from all sides, moving seamlessly to trap her, but the elf breezed around their attacks. Timmy bit back a curse. It
was like trying to catch the wind. But the elf wasn’t content to merely dodge. The instant even the tiniest gap appeared, she struck back. A miniscule overextension left a zombie without first an arm and then a leg before it was turned into a bonfire. A slightly awkward parry let the elf jam a dagger up through a zombie’s chin. She wrenched the weapon out and shoved the zombie away, her fire already consuming it.

  But the most worrying thing was what happened when one of the zombies actually managed to bring its blade down in a two-handed, overhead chop. The elf didn’t even blink. She raised one arm and blocked the blow with her dagger. That was ridiculous. Elves were, by nature, stronger than humans, but these zombies should still have been able to overpower her.

  “Move faster.” Timmy continued his ascent toward the top of the ridge. “My zombies won’t last much longer. We need to hit her fast and hard. She’s great with a bow and daggers, and her magic is perfect for combat. We need to cheat because we’re not going to beat her in a fair fight.”

  Timmy flinched as the elf killed the last of his zombies. She’d cut its legs out from under it and then stomped down on its chest. Smiling – and it was a terrifying smile – she’d lifted her booted foot one last time and then crushed its head. Oh, they were definitely in trouble. He caught a flash of light at the edges of his vision.

  “Get down!” Timmy dove toward Gerald and shoved the other man out of the way. An arrow hurtled through the air where his head had been. The projectile thumped into a tree behind them and exploded. The blast tossed them through the air. Timmy landed in the dirt and scrambled to his feet. “Never mind stealth. She’s spotted us. Charge!”

  Another arrow raced through the air, this one aimed at his head. He jerked his shovel up in time to block it. The explosion threw him back, but his shovel held firm. Good, he’d spent years improving the enchantments on it. He staggered back to his feet and waved Katie and Gerald over. He had a few tricks up his sleeve, and now was the time to start using them.