by Nat Russo
“My Lord?”
“Kill me.”
“What?”
“If for even a moment I behave in a fashion that seems threatening to you or your men…that will be the only moment you get before your life is forfeit.”
The Centenaur swallowed and nodded.
The sound of battle grew muffled outside the eastern gate. The dull crack of boulders striking a distant wall echoed on the stone streets.
They jogged north under the deserted eastern wall, and the sound of destruction grew louder. Mujahid signaled for everyone to stop when he reached the northeast tower.
The enemy’s siege engines were too far away to be hit and too far away to hit the wall. They had to be magically enhanced.
A commotion rose among the enemy forces, and he could see the vanguard marching toward the wall. Many of the soldiers had looks of disbelief on their faces. The northern gate must be open now. The soldiers within would be making a show of surrender. The diversion was working.
Mujahid gestured for everyone to follow him as he headed farther east, down the embankment that kept the city elevated above the plain. He just needed to give the archers a clear view.
Laughter erupted in the enemy vanguard.
Digby was running back and forth, naked from head to toe, his bowed legs moving faster than Mujahid thought possible. After performing several cartwheels, and pantomiming being ravaged by the northern gate, Digby ran back into the city. Some of the soldiers in the van doubled over with laughter, but most looked at each other with confused expressions.
This was the moment Mujahid needed. Digby’s secret weapon had worked.
Mujahid looked over his shoulder at Centenaur Eric. “Now.”
One hundred arrows launched toward the vanguard. Mujahid signaled and the other two necromancers entered the battle.
When the first of the undead rose, the imperial soldiers didn’t realize what was happening. One moment their fellow soldiers were laughing next to them. The next moment they would rise, striking at anyone within arm’s reach.
A surge of death energy emanated in waves from farther out to the north. Mujahid watched the other two necromancers with a discerning eye as they raised penitents in quick succession. But it was early in the battle. The effects of madness would be difficult to detect. He summoned his own penitents into the mix.
The number of undead on the field grew at an alarming rate. The Religarian forces remained confused after the first three volleys of arrows. They had no idea where the attack was coming from.
The undead slaughtered everything in reach with a sadistic fury, ripping their opponents apart by hand as often as using a weapon. Some were killed by empire soldiers, only to be raised and thrust back into the fray. Soldiers fled as they realized what was happening around them.
As necessary as this was, Mujahid’s stomach sickened. Each of those reanimated corpses was a person who was suffering and confused. He had to fight his natural instinct to help them. He had a job to do, and thousands of lives depended on him. The dead would take care of the dead. He had to take care of the living now.
He focused his concentration and looked back toward the battlefield. Many of the fleeing soldiers were cut down by a surging swarm of death. The thirsty, barren field turned crimson beneath their feet, and a hideous mud formed and clung to boots and armor.
An empire soldier…an officer by the look of it…had ridden into the van and was shouting orders. Soldiers turned this way and that, but found themselves under attack by dead allies they thought were still alive. The only way to know for certain who was dead and who was alive was by the degree of injury sustained.
An arrow took the officer straight through his right eye, and he slumped off his mount. Mujahid channeled power into the corpse and summoned the officer back from the dead. When the namocea was over, Mujahid took control. He commanded the man to remove the arrow from the gaping wound and toss it aside. Without thinking, he attempted to get the officer to remount, but the horse would have no part of it.
He cursed himself for his ignorance.
Animals could always tell the difference between the dead and the living. The giant warhorse reared up on its hind legs and tried to trample the undead officer.
Mujahid called the soldier off, and the horse bolted backwards, crushing several men in the process. Mujahid cast power forward and the men rose, one by one, no longer fettered by the moral constraints of life, and no longer in possession of anything resembling sanity.
A sharp, stabbing pain took Mujahid in the thigh, and he looked down to find an arrow protruding from the muscle. He looked up to the wall to find the source of the attack and cursed. A Tildem archer was fighting a losing battle with one of the necromancers and had misfired.
So it begins, Mujahid thought as he looked at the now-insane priest.
His newly-raised penitent sensed his distress and began running toward him.
Mujahid had to do something. If the Religarians saw the commander running this way, they would follow.
He ordered the penitent to return to battle, and filled his energy well.
He sent a wall of force in the direction of the archer and the necromancer. The blast caught both of them, tossing them backward down the embankment. The fallen necromancer rose and lunged toward the archer.
Mujahid recoiled as wisps of power moved past him from the tower above. The insane necromancer was lifted off the ground as if bound by mystical ropes.
Mujahid looked for the source of the power.
Digby stared back at him from the tower. The expression on his face was deadly, but something was holding him back. He must be looking for permission to kill the other priest.
Mujahid nodded.
Digby made a sweeping gesture toward the killing field below the wall, and the necromancer flew into the midst of the carnage. A nearby penitent reared back and threw himself at the fallen priest, ripping the necromancer’s throat out.
Mujahid had never witnessed such an adept display of telekinesis in all his years of necromancy. There was more to Digby than the man let on.
Mujahid channeled power into the dead necromancer and ordered him into battle. He told himself that he needed to control these penitents, but he knew it was a lie. The insane necromancer had affected him, and he wasn’t expecting it.
A stabbing sensation brought him back to the present. If he didn’t do something about his leg soon, the injury would be permanent. He was going to have to remove the arrow himself.
Motion caught his eye and he looked up to see Digby leap from the crenelated tower.
Mujahid screamed at him to stop, but it was too late. The man had gone insane. He must have thrown himself off the tower in a moment of clarity. Mujahid wanted to turn away but something stopped him.
Digby wasn’t falling.
The diminutive priest slowed his fall with another masterful display of telekinesis. When he reached the ground, he ran to Mujahid’s side.
“Are you aware there’s something pointy sticking out of your leg?” Digby said.
“I thought you mad.”
“I just threw myself off a wall, man. Of course I’m mad.”
Mujahid gripped the arrow by the shaft. “Are you ready?”
“The question, my Lord, is are you ready?”
Mujahid ripped the arrow from his thigh. His flesh tore as the barbed point ripped through his leg. His vision swam, but the unmistakable vibration of power entered his leg.
Digby was healing him. He shouldn’t know how to do that.
Mujahid’s energy returned and the wound started closing.
“I’ll be ok from here,” Mujahid said. “Thank you.”
“You’re a mighty necromancer, Lord Mujahid, but not even that thick skull of yours is hard enough to stop arrows. You’re too important. Don’t die.”
With a single push of his legs, Digby leapt into the air and ascended back to the tower.
Mujahid was speechless.
Shouts of
“to the King” went up near the northern gate.
King Donal charged into the midst of a group of Religarian soldiers, who had made it past the line of undead and were threatening the gate. His swordplay was masterful, but his sword wasn’t the weapon Mujahid was interested in. A penitent fought at Donal’s side.
The king was not only personally leading his men into battle. He was leading as a necromancer.
Smoke had begun to blot out the amber sky, and as it began to cloud Mujahid’s vision, three Religarians charged King Donal. A crushing blow from a war hammer the length of a man broke Donal’s sword in half as the smoke grew too thick to see through.
There was no way to get to the king now. Mujahid hoped Donal’s guard was up to the challenge.
The acrid odor from the smoke burned Mujahid’s nostrils, and he turned to find the source.
Fires had been set at the vanguard and the rear in an attempt to separate the living from the undead. If he didn’t stop underestimating this Religarian commander, they would all pay the price for it.
The blaze had engulfed many of the living along with the undead, but the undead penitents were taking the most damage. There was a clearly-defined corridor of living soldiers, caught between the wall of fire at the van and the wall of fire at the rear. Fire had destroyed the siege engines at both ends, but the ones in the central corridor were standing. The empire had been shaken by Death’s Vise, but they were regrouping, and if Mujahid didn’t change his tactics the temporary gains would mean nothing.
The Religarian commander had ordered his archers forward, and they were targeting Tildem archers at the rear and eastern flank. It would only be a matter of time before the Religarian forces overwhelmed the wall. Tildem would fall.
Nuuan came running along the rear of the enemy force. He cast as he ran in an apparent attempt to raise the archers as they fell. But in order for it to work, he would have to control every one he raised, and there was no telling how many he had already summoned during the battle.
Mujahid was weak, but he was running out of options. He commanded his penitent necromancer to begin casting toward the enemy force. An undead priest may not be able to summon a penitent of his own, but he could wield a healthy amount of necropotency.
The necromantic link evaporated, leaving Mujahid disoriented. He looked out onto the smoke-covered battlefield through columns of fire. A group of life magi were killing the undead soldiers with bursts of fire that vaporized anything in their path. The tide of battle was turning, and not for the better.
Archers and infantry fell by the dozen as flames enveloped a large section of the wall. The remaining catapults hurled burning payloads that burst on impact, spreading liquid fire with an accelerant that Mujahid couldn’t identify. Tildem infantry gathered in preparation for the inevitable breach.
Mujahid had to shake this fear that had risen inside him. Risk of insanity or no, he couldn’t stand here and do nothing as Rotham fell.
He took a deep breath and cast necropotency out into the field, summoning as many undead as he could in rapid succession, living one lifetime after another. If he failed here, all of Erindor would be doomed to an uncertain fate. The darkness closed in around him, as his mind grew closer and closer to the point of fracture.
Lifetime after lifetime, atrocity after atrocity, he stood on the embankment once more. How much time had passed? Four thousand years? Five thousand years? He raged with evil absorbed over the course of untold millennia. Every rape, every murder, every genocide twisted and deformed his soul until he no longer knew anything of Mujahid or Mukhtaar Lords, Pinnacles or Archmages. He wanted to kill the little flying man. He wanted to rip him apart with his bare hands. Maybe he would tear his heart out and eat it. He had done that many times in the last thousand years. He had grown to like the taste of human flesh, succulent and warm. He would start by setting Digby on fire. That would be fun. Digby would burn and dance, and this time he wouldn’t escape.
Mujahid filled his power well and prepared to cast.
Something rose up from deep within his being. The boundless rage had broken free of its shackles and rushed to the surface, a malevolent force that fought to take control of him. He saw no flames, but it was as if he were on fire. It felt as if his bones wanted to break free from his body.
Pain exploded in his face, and brilliant lights danced before his eyes. He landed on his back and his head hit the ground with a solid thud. The evil that had threatened to consume him slipped away.
“You try that again and I’ll kill you myself,” Nuuan said. “You won’t have to go crazy first, you idiot! By the fetid sweat on Zubuxo’s—what the hells were you thinking?”
Who was this vulgar man screaming at him?
Nuuan. His brother.
Tildem.
The Pinnacle.
The tyrant.
Memories rushed back in a torrent of images.
“Nuuan?” Mujahid said, groggy from the punch to the face. “What in Arin’s name are you doing here? The rear?”
“Never mind that now. It’s too late.”
“How?”
“Look,” Nuuan said, pointing toward the battle.
Mujahid turned toward the battlefield and his eyes widened in horror. The absence of any necromantic links confirmed what his eyes beheld. Not a single undead warrior remained standing on the field. They weren’t fallen…they were gone, destroyed by the fires that ravaged the field. Several thousand Religarian soldiers remained, and they were advancing.
Rotham would fall. There was nothing Mujahid could do about it anymore.
“You need to go, brother,” Nuuan said. “Get your arse out of here and back into the city.”
“We’ll go together.”
“I’ll be staying.”
Motion caught Mujahid’s attention and he turned to see Digby walking toward them with the two necromancers that had been helping Nuuan at the rear. They each had the same deadpan expression on their face.
“What are you going to do?” Mujahid said to no one in particular.
“I’ll see you again, brother,” Nuuan said. “May be a while, though.”
Mujahid panicked. He wasn’t accustomed to panic.
“Now go,” Nuuan said. “Quickly, before it’s too late. Get back into the city and wait.”
“Nuuan.”
“Trust me, brother. Stay in the city until the fog disappears. You hear me? Wait for the fog to pass.”
“What fog? What in Arin’s—”
“Go!”
Mujahid nodded and turned back to the wall. For reasons he couldn’t explain or understand, he started running.
He didn’t want to leave Nuuan there. His brother was stubborn. He’d never talk the man out of whatever plan he had concocted. But he trusted Nuuan. Even if he didn’t know or like what he was planning.
A burning sensation in his chest distracted him for a moment. Was it a remnant of nearly going insane? He ignored it and kept running.
The wall was peppered with large holes. Mujahid entered through one of the demolished sections and ran toward the command center at the northern gate.
A half a block from the command center, soldiers were staring out at the battlefield with looks of disbelief.
The Religarian army had turned around, as if some unseen threat approached them from the rear. A semi-transparent dome rose from the center of the field, growing to cover a group of people beneath it.
Mujahid ran into the eastern tower, which was still standing, and climbed up for a better look.
What he saw defied explanation. Nuuan and his three companions had fought their way to the center of the battlefield, and one of them…Digby, from the look of things…was releasing energy from his hands that splayed out and formed the dome. Volleys of arrows bounced off the structure as if striking stone.
At the center of the dome was Nuuan. He was sitting on the ground, ignoring what was going on around him. The dirt on the battlefield churned, as if dozens of miniature vortexes
were rotating just beneath the surface.
Nuuan collapsed. The necromancers under the dome ran to his side. Digby ran toward him as well, and the transparent dome vanished with a thunderous explosion that filled the battlefield with a thick, red fog.
Mujahid’s chest grew warmer, and again he ignored it. Was this the fog Nuuan had warned him about?
A nightmarish sound rose from the battlefield. It was impossible to see what was happening through the fog, but from what Mujahid heard, he was glad he couldn’t see. The sound of a thousand blades filled the air, intermingled with the screams of men watching their doom approach. A sickening, slicing noise rose up from the field and rain poured down on the fog-shrouded areas, swirling the fog into a series of damp red vortexes.
An errant drop struck the side of Mujahid’s face and he wiped it off. When he pulled his hand away, he realized something about the texture of the rain wasn’t right. He held his hand up and stared as blood dripped down his finger.
The individual swirls of red fog, which had been scattered among the Empire soldiers, coalesced into a bloodthirsty vortex in the center of the killing field, drawing the horrific cloud into a tornado of blood and human remains. When the howling wind reached an ear-shattering volume, the vortex stopped spinning and began to collapse in on itself, layer by layer, until all of the blood and gore existed as a single point in space.
The point vanished, and stillness settled on the field. Not a single Religarian remained. What the vortex left behind of the Religarians wasn’t recognizable as human. It was a mixture of flesh, liquid and mud oozing together to create a macabre lake of death.
The warmth in Mujahid’s chest threatened to distract him from his horror, and he shook it off.
Where was Nuuan? Panic rose as Mujahid considered the possibility that his brother was a part of that grizzly lake. He took a moment to get control of himself, going over the last things Nuuan had said. Nuuan never made a promise he couldn’t keep.
A cheer rose up from the Tildem army, but Mujahid couldn’t take his eyes away from the battlefield. In all his years of necromancy, he had seen more strange things on this day than in all previous days combined.