Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles

by Nat Russo

  The dome and walls of the Arinian temple seemed to collapse in slow motion. Yet the destruction happened so quickly, so completely, no one could have escaped.

  Zorian said there were thousands of people in there!

  Nicolas ran along the ever widening street, ignoring the pooled water on the cobblestones. Kaitlyn would be at the harbor, which was to his right.

  People flooded into the streets and stared in the direction of the collapsing Arinian temple. But they soon regretted it.

  Two buildings on Nicolas’s left exploded, sending stone and wood fragments flying. The force was so strong, it knocked him across the street. He hadn’t even heard the cannons fire that time.

  The few people who remained alive ran screaming farther into the city.

  “No!” Nicolas yelled. “You need to leave the city!”

  Nicolas stood, but pain in his left foot made him collapse once more.

  Nothing was broken, but he must have sprained his ankle badly.

  He forced himself up and jogged toward the harbor as quickly as his limp would allow.

  The bombardment was nonstop. A hundred Barathosian warships sailed a slow circle around the gigantic command vessel, with five ships always broadside to the city. As the lead ship would steer out of the firing line, another would steer into it from behind. By the time the first ship came around again, having sailed around the command vessel, all sixty of its visible cannons—twenty on each of its three gun decks—were reloaded and ready to fire. The result was continuous cannon fire.

  A tavern collapsed at Nicolas’s right, filling the street with a cloud of dust that started him choking. The tavern’s sign—a brown-robed Arinian with a mug of ale—fell to the cobblestone street and shattered.

  He remembered that tavern from when he left Kaitlyn at the harbor. She must be close.

  Terror-filled cries came from the collapsed tavern.

  “Help us!” the voices yelled. “Please!”

  Nicolas ran several more steps before stopping.

  I can’t just leave them.

  But it likely wouldn’t be long before the armada started firing on the harbor as well.

  No, I can do it. I can get these people out of the building, then make my way to Kait.

  He ran toward the collapsed tavern as another volley of cannon fire shredded the four-story building across the street.

  Stone and glass rained down, and Nicolas pulled his robe over his head.

  A massive stone wall had collapsed on top of a young man and woman. The parts of the tavern still standing were rocked precariously. They’d never survive something else collapsing on top of them.

  The woman had managed to free all except her legs, one of which was bent at an unnatural angle. But the man was buried up to his shoulders, his face and hair white with dust from the crumbling stone. Both bled freely through torn, white desert robes.

  “I’m here!” Nicolas yelled. He tried to lift the side of the fallen wall. If he could budge it just an inch, the woman might be able to crawl free. But it was too much weight.

  “I think my leg is broken,” the woman said.

  “How many are trapped inside?” Nicolas asked.

  “The tavern was full,” the woman said.

  The man spit dust from his mouth. “I should never have brought you here. Now we’re going to die.”

  “No one’s going to die,” Nicolas said.

  Unless I can’t get that wall off of them…

  Nicolas drew necropotency into his well and opened a channel to the skull symbol. He wasn’t certain if this would work, but he had to try something.

  I need someone strong. Hercules strong. There’s no way a normal penitent will be able to lift that stone wall and roof.

  When the necropotency embraced the skull symbol, he cast the power outward in no particular direction. The only dead bodies he knew of were too far away for him to reach. There might be some here, but he couldn’t see them to direct the power. No, this would be a pure summoning—raising the dead without the assistance of a corpse.

  But as the power left him, it diverted downward, deep into the ground. The last time that happened, he’d summoned an argram warrior.

  What the hell am I summoning this time?

  The familiar stream of images raced toward Nicolas’s consciousness, and he lived more than forty years in the span of a moment.

  The ground rumbled violently as the namocea stopped and Nicolas returned to the present. After all his training, it was still disorienting.

  The building behind Nicolas began to crumble, but not from cannon fire.

  A massive skeletal arm, thirty feet in length, and ending in a ten-foot long hand, burst from under the street next to the collapsing building. Its counterpart erupted from the other side. As the structure collapsed, it parted around a giant skull with a single eye socket in the center of its forehead.

  When the gargantuan skeleton tore free of its desert grave, it stood sixty feet tall—twice as tall as the tallest building on the street. Its conical skull had but a single eye socket.

  Seriously? A cyclops?

  Nicolas took a moment to take control of the necromantic link, and the cyclops—Tewgar—stared down at him.

  Cannon fire shredded two buildings a block away, sending clouds of dust up and over the collapsed tavern.

  I have to finish this and get to Kaitlyn!

  “Get that wall off of those people,” Nicolas said. “Hurry!”

  Tewgar leaned forward, grasped the edge of the stone wall between two fingers and lifted it off the trapped couple.

  Nicolas dragged the young woman clear of the wall and went back for her boyfriend.

  Muffled screams came from farther inside the collapsed tavern.

  Nicolas hurried to pull the man free, then ran farther into the building, uncertain of what he’d find.

  I hope the rest of that roof holds.

  A man, a woman, and two children huddled in the corner, next to a stove.

  “There!” Nicolas yelled over the din of the cannon fire. “Head to the street! Quickly!”

  “What is that thing?” the man asked, staring at Tewgar.

  “It won’t hurt you,” Nicolas said. “Just go.”

  The man snapped out of whatever shock he was in, gathered his family, and ran for the street.

  The muffled screams grew louder. There were more people in the back room.

  This was taking too long! The more time he spent here, the more of a chance Kaitlyn wouldn’t survive the bombardment.

  He had a choice to make.

  The roof creaked once more. It wouldn’t be long before the entire thing came down.

  Kaitlyn’s words from their first night together on Erindor played through his mind. “You can’t save all of your pieces all of the time.”

  Is that what he was doing? Was he trying to save everyone and risking the outcome of the entire battle in the process?

  She was right. He was trying to save a handful of people here when helping Kaitlyn could save hundreds of thousands in Dar Rodon.

  He had to get to her. It was that simple.

  As he turned his back on the cries from within the partially collapsed tavern, the ceiling crashed down.

  A wave of necropotency poured over him like liquid guilt.

  I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

  Nicolas glanced up at Tewgar, who stood with a section of wall in his right hand.

  “Can you do some damage with that thing?” Nicolas asked.

  Tewgar looked toward the bay and roared. He reared back and threw the section of wall. The sweeping motion of his arm created a wind so great, it drove the dust clouds from the collapsed buildings toward the harbor.

  The wall arced over the bay and slammed into one of the gunships edge-first, piercing all three cannon decks and toppling two of its four masts. When the fore and aft decks separated from the blow, the fore deck capsized and the aft drifted into the neighboring ship, forcing its captain to adjust cour
se.

  Nicolas ran for the harbor, which was less than two blocks away.

  Tewgar stop angry dwarves on boats? Tewgar asked through the necromantic link.

  Yes! Take out as many of those ships as you can!

  Tewgar picked up another wall section and bounded forward. In four giant steps, he plunged into the Bay of Relig, submerged up to his thigh bones.

  Tewgar stop more dwarves, Tewgar said.

  You’re doing great!

  Nicolas rounded the corner of a partially demolished building, and the harbor came into view once more. Tewgar was submerged up to his waist now, waving a warship in the air above his head.

  But something had changed in the bay.

  The ships that weren’t part of the circular firing pattern had come about until they were broadside to Tewgar.

  Two ships fired their three decks of cannons, and Tewgar’s massive ribcage came apart, raining bone fragments into the bay. In moments, Tewgar collapsed into the water, and his necromantic link winked out of Nicolas’s mind.

  When Tewgar’s massive hands struck the water, the ship they had been carrying fractured apart from the force.

  I’ll summon you again someday, Tewgar. I promise.

  Nicolas ran faster. He could see the chimeramancer’s tent and table from here. Just a few hundred more yards.

  Saltwater spray washed over him, adding to the strong smell of damp wood.

  Kaitlyn sat on the boardwalk, several feet away from them, no longer hiding around the corner. She pressed a hand against the side of her head, as if in pain. One of the chimeramancers was on the ground, but the older one approached Kaitlyn with an arm extended in front of him.

  Hold on Kait! I’m almost there!

  Kaitlyn smiled as more ships vanished, unable to believe her crazy idea had worked.

  She pressed her back against a ladder fixed to the side of the building next to her. Mester Vincen and Gabril were no more than twenty feet away, closer to the water on the edge of the boardwalk.

  Mester Vincen straightened as he looked out into the bay.

  “What are those fools doing?” Mester Vincen said. “This isn’t part of—Gabril, look at this. This is what can happen when the ancillary dreams collapse. I knew I shouldn’t have left this in their hands. Transmigrate me to the chimera chamber.” When nothing happened, Mester Vincen shouted. “Gabril!”

  Kaitlyn felt a push against her mind. The pushing became shoving, and soon a sharp pain rippled through her head in waves.

  Her mind no longer overlapped Gabril’s.

  All five ships reappeared, precisely where they were before they’d vanished.

  “Cognitomancer!” Gabril yelled.

  Mester Vincen leapt backward, nearly stumbling over the rope railing into the bay. “Don’t let her touch you!”

  A concussive blast from the bay made Kaitlyn cover her ears. The returning boats fired their cannons into the city.

  She gripped the ladder to steady herself. As she squeezed, the ground beneath her feet vanished and she dangled twenty feet above the roiling water.

  Gabril!

  If Gabril could create anything he imagined, how could she fight back?

  Sulfurous smoke rolled in from the bay, and Kaitlyn started choking.

  Her arms grew weaker with every passing moment.

  She pulled herself up and started climbing the ladder. If she could hide before the smoke cleared, Gabril wouldn’t know where to attack. The cannons were firing farther into the city, probably because the chimeramancers were still on the boardwalk, so she’d be safe on the roof as long as they stayed there.

  When she hoisted herself over the ledge, she stood and looked back toward the palace.

  The Temple of Arin exploded from the cannon fire. Fragments from its crushed walls and shattered dome so pulverized they were indistinguishable.

  Everywhere she looked, buildings collapsed or were already destroyed.

  And the cannons kept firing.

  She had to get those ships out of the bay. But how could she do it in such a way that they stayed gone this time?

  She pushed her mind outward once more until it recoiled at Gabril’s touch.

  Something was different. Gabril was prepared for her attack. Every time she tried to fuse her mind to his, his mind would retract or become impenetrable.

  Think, Kait!

  Searing flame shot up from the street where she’d been minutes ago. Had she not climbed the ladder, she would have been incinerated.

  But Gabril’s dream magic had an unintended consequence; the ladder was ablaze.

  Great. How am I going to get down now?

  Kaitlyn glanced around the roof, hoping the ladder wasn’t the only way up. A small shrine at the center of the roof was the only thing of note. It consisted of a stone altar, some kind of helmet painted to look gold, and an offering bowl, filled with something she couldn’t see from her vantage point.

  Beyond the shrine, however, was a small wooden trapdoor. She almost didn’t see it, so well concealed was it under two sacks.

  The building rumbled.

  She ran for the trapdoor, opened it, and climbed down a short ladder into a well-kept sitting room.

  Narrow beams of golden light illuminated dust particles through slats in the large, shuttered window on the opposite side of the room.

  The rumbling started again, but it no longer felt like it was coming from the building. She ran to the window and opened the shutters.

  A giant skeleton, towering over the surrounding buildings, had climbed out of the ground and was holding what looked like the wall of a building.

  Nick!

  He had to be responsible for this.

  The giant hurled the wall into the bay, where it slammed into a Barathosian warship, splitting it in two and sinking it. Moments later, it picked something else up and ran toward the bay.

  As the skeletal giant plunged into the water, the resistance Kaitlyn had felt coming from Gabril’s mind changed. Maybe it was the distraction of the giant, or maybe Gabril had just grown tired. But whatever it was, Kaitlyn was able to expand her mind into his.

  If you can transport other people, then you can transport me too.

  She imagined herself standing on the boardwalk, on the opposite side of the fire.

  There was no disorientation, or fading, as there was when Nicolas used the translocation orb. Her reality simply changed, and the change was immediate. In less than a moment, she’d gone from standing on top of a burning building, to standing on the boardwalk below it.

  But she hadn’t been specific enough. Gabril had transported her within fifteen feet of him and Mester Vincen.

  Mester Vincen turned on her, and before she could react, the world became muffled.

  Something slammed into her back.

  Kaitlyn reached forward and scraped her hands on something hard mere inches in front of her.

  She was inside some sort of box or crate, and she was on her back.

  This isn’t real. This is just one of his dreams.

  She wasn’t sure how he had done it. She was told chimeramancers needed to be asleep to work their magic, but Mester Vincen had been wide awake, and Gabril was under her control.

  Gabril!

  Kaitlyn focused on the region of her mind that overlapped Gabril’s. She formed an image of the box vanishing and wrapping around Mester Vincen instead.

  Once again, gray clouds hung above her, and the sound of the cannons grew loud.

  A wooden crate, about the size of a tall refrigerator, had taken Mester Vincen’s place in front of the map table. Wrapped around him, to be precise.

  “Gabril, no!” Mester Vincen yelled. His voice was muffled. “Control this, or I will!

  The fear emanating from Gabril’s mind was tangible.

  As another cannon volley exploded, the ships Kaitlyn had transported away reappeared.

  The giant skeleton in the bay, holding two ships over his head, collapsed into the water in fragments o
f bone. The ships he held didn’t fare much better.

  “Gabril!” Mester Vincen yelled. “The swarm is coming!”

  A portion of Kaitlyn’s mind was still fused with Gabril’s, but something was pushing against it. Stretching it. And the more it stretched, the thinner its structure became.

  Gabril’s mind tore, and the portion fused with Kaitlyn’s faded away.

  The standing crate vanished, and Mester Vincen faced Gabril, intense concentration on his face.

  If Kaitlyn could touch Mester Vincen’s robe with her hand, she could imbue it with an alternate reality. One in which those Barathosian warships had to return home. Mester Vincen would do all the work for her, and she’d be free to find Nicolas and get out of here.

  Now was her chance, while he was preoccupied with Gabril.

  Kaitlyn projected her mind forward, toward Mester Vincen.

  The boundary of his mind was defenseless, so focused was he on Gabril.

  When Kaitlyn’s mind entered Mester Vincen’s, it struck something solid. Painful. It was like driving head first into oncoming traffic and slamming into a truck.

  He hadn’t been defenseless at all. He’d been luring her in, and she’d fallen for it.

  Mester Vincen pushed back, and excruciating pain exploded in her mind.

  She grabbed her head as her vision swam.

  I have to fight this! I have to find a way to…

  Realization struck.

  I’m so stupid! It doesn’t matter if my mind enters his, or his enters mine. I just need them to overlap!

  Kaitlyn relaxed and let go of her control. She allowed her mind to become pliable, welcoming, accepting.

  When Mester Vincen pushed back once more, the outer barrier of his mind crossed hers, and she fused the two together.

  Mester Vincen was hers.

  She dug through his thoughts and memories until she found images of the one person Mester Vincen cared most about.

  Mester Vincen’s eyes widened, and he smiled. He reached out toward her and stepped forward.

  “Father,” Mester Vincen said. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Come closer, my son,” Kaitlyn said.

  The bay grew silent as the cannon fire ceased. But something was changing around the command ship. A black cloud rose from openings at its base. At first, the cloud drifted straight up and spread out. But in a span of moments, it condensed into a column, turned, and began stretching toward the shore.