Necromancer Awakening (46 page)

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.

The heat in the center of his chest had grown unbearable, and he couldn’t take it anymore. He pulled his robe outward and looked down the neck to see what was causing it.

The Talisman of Archmages was active. Nicolas was alive.

Oh how the gods mock me
.

He hoisted the talisman out of his robes and studied it. Nicolas was traveling toward Arin’s Watch.

The boy remembered.

Mujahid looked down from the tower and saw the king standing in front of the gate, disheveled and staggering. A wounded soldier stood on one side, and a penitent stood on the other. Mujahid climbed down the stairs and joined him.

“Majesty,” Mujahid said.

Donal swayed and nearly fell. He held up the hilt of his shattered sword.

“Somebody broke my sword,” Donal said. “Dirty
bastard
broke my sword.”

Mujahid made his way down from the tower and held the talisman up for Donal to see.

Donal leaned against the wall for support.

“I must leave for Arin’s Watch,” Mujahid said.

“You’ll not travel alone,” Donal said. “Commander Yuli will accompany you with a small force.”

He hadn’t realized the bruised and bleeding person standing next to the king was Yuli. She had a cut over her left eye and was struggling to see.

“Aye, Majesty,” she said. “I’ll go.”

“Rally the necromancers of Tildem, King Donal,” Mujahid said. “The future of Erindor depends on it.”

“I intend to,” Donal said.

“If my brother should return….” Mujahid had to choke back a lump in his throat.

“I will tell him where you are, and what we saw here,” Donal said.

Mujahid nodded and joined Yuri.

They gathered what supplies they could, and within an hour they had left Rotham behind through the eastern gate.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Nicolas had emerged from the turbulent Sea of Arin through an underground waterway known only to the cichlos. They’d told him where to find the switchbacks leading to the top of the sheer cliff face near Arin’s Watch, where’d he see a monolithic statue in the distance across the sea. He was told it was a statue of Arin, but it was too far away to tell.

He surprised a starving crag spider while climbing up the switchbacks and had to deal with it, but the cichlos had warned him about those as well.

What he wasn’t expecting were the Religarians. They were patrolling the cliffs several miles from Arin’s Watch, away from any roads or ports. Some mounted, some on foot. They must be aware of the switchbacks as well. He saw them too late to avoid them.

They were young. Too young to recognize the significance of the robe he wore. He should have worn something less noticeable, but it was a part of him now. He was a necromancer. And he had no intention of hiding that fact.

There were close to twenty of them. His stomach churned, which surprised him. He expected fear to be gone along with his innocence. He should know better.

“Identify yourself,” a mounted soldier said. His mount wasn’t as long as an adda-ki, but the creature’s six legs were more muscular.

Nicolas called to mind Kaitlyn’s picture, and his rolling stomach began to settle.

The world outside fled along with the fear and anxiety, and he dwelled within his cet. There was nothing but peace there. Peace and power, intermingling as if one could not exist without the other, two forces in perfect balance. They intertwined around the image of Kaitlyn and embraced her.

“I’m under the authority of the Emperor of Religar and the archmage,” the soldier said. “Maybe a jail cell will loosen your lips?”

Not gonna happen, asshole.

Nicolas had seen the inside of too many jail cells in Erindor. He didn’t know which would scandalize the nuns at the orphanage most—his ability to raise the dead, or his two stints in jail since leaving them. He chuckled when he realized it would probably be the latter.

“You find us amusing?” the soldier said.

Nicolas stopped chuckling. “You’re marching an army through somebody else’s country like you own the place. Yeah, that tickles me a little.”

Another mounted soldier came forward and drew a sword. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Suit yourself,” Nicolas said. He embraced his power, preparing to attack, but hesitated for a moment, looking for any possible route of escape. When he found none, he swore.

I don’t want to do this again!

The mounted soldier raised his sword and swung.

Nicolas expelled two narrow, sharpened cylinders of necropotency at the mounted men.

His attacker fell to the ground clutching his throat, blood flowing in rivulets between his fingers. The other mounted soldier slid off his mount soon after, and his compatriots backed away. They turned in confusion, as if looking for an ambush.

The telekinesis weakened Nicolas. Manipulating necropotency like that was draining. He was taking his newfound power for granted, and power was no substitute for brains. If he didn’t perform a summoning now, he wouldn’t have any energy left to survive the fight.

He raised the dead Religarians, his mind aging a half century in a moment. Through their memories he understood what was happening and why they were here. Arin’s Watch was in the hands of Religar now, and a bloody field paved the way through its western gate. That explained the presence of a crag spider so close to a city. But the soldiers had seen two conflicting versions of the events that took place.

His penitents attacked and two more Religarians died before the others realized what was happening. The necropotency from their corpses flowed into Nicolas in a steady stream.

“Six hells! He’s necromancer,” a soldier said.

Cries went up at the word
necromancer
and the group erupted in chaos. Several soldiers raced toward him with swords drawn, but the rest fled to the rear.