A few seconds before the spiraling arm struck, it curved inwards and away, sending a blast of cold, sulfuric air washing over them. Talis froze, clearly seeing the Jiserian soldiers now. They weren’t human. At least not anymore. The soldiers and horses were all bone and rotting flesh. Swirling red and gold orbs blazed in their eye sockets. Talis glanced up at the figures in the sky.
Necromancers.
Talis gripped his short sword, feeling heat burning up his arm and racing down his spine.
Jarvis rode to the front, as if he could stop the overwhelming force. “Stay back!” Jarvis brandished his two-handed great sword.
The undead soldiers raised their swords and axes and halberds as they charged them, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. They rode in a twin blade formation, splitting before they reached the party. Circling, the undead soldiers paused, leering at them.
The lead necromancer flew down from the sky and landed twenty feet away. A pool of shadows swirled in her webbed hand. “You will surrender.” She extended her palm towards Jarvis. Talis had never seen such a terror before. Waves of shadowy mist billowed from her figure and light spilled in from above and illuminated the mist. Her eyes were radiant and cruel, yet her face appeared like a child.
“Go to hell,” shouted Jarvis, and raised his sword.
The woman chuckled and brought her hands together, sending a wave of shadows and light speeding at Jarvis. The force slammed into him, knocking him fifty feet back.
“Surrender…or die,” the woman said. A devilish smirk appeared on her lips.
“What do you want with us?” shouted a soldier. “We’re a simple scouting party-”
“You lie,” the woman hissed, and set her face into a twisted scowl. Now, she seemed a thousand years old, spidery veins on her neck, pulsing and black.
Another necromancer with a shaved head landed to the right. “Hand over the boy with the map case.”
“I sense the power.” The woman strode forward until she was inches from the soldier’s face. Her palm twitched. “I sense a powerful relic is near.”
Talis shrank back behind the soldiers, wanting to find a hole and disappear forever. They were looking for him.
Some strange power came over Rikar and he marched up and stood next to the soldier. The woman had gazed at him as he approached, as if her eyes searched his soul.
“You know of magic.” She frowned. “Yet you are not the one.”
“Deal with me, not the young ones.” The soldier stepped in front of Rikar.
“This one talks too much,” the bald necromancer said, and released a flood of demonic faces at the soldier.
He grabbed his throat, his face turning ashen, neck bulging and throbbing, and dropped to his knees, face planting into the sand.
“Now the map, and the boy, if you please.” The woman eyed the other soldiers.
“I have a better idea, let’s kill them one by one-”
“Patience, Oren, patience…”
“Talis,” Rikar said, “you might as well show yourself.”
As Talis stepped out, furious at Rikar for giving him away, he caught the woman’s gaze and the feeling of power grew from the sword in his hand. It built up into an uncontrollable rage, which he fought to suppress with all his power.
“This is the one.” The woman flew forward to where Talis stood.
Talis withdrew the map case and displayed it to the woman. “Is this what you are looking for?” he said. He used the moment’s distraction, stepped forward, and plunged the sword into her heart.
A wailing and hissing sound was heard as she vanished, her body melting into ash. The blood-red cloak wrapped around her floated to the ground.
Half the undead soldiers and horses collapsed around them. Bones clacked against bones, wilting on the sand. The sky cleared. Sunlight rained down on the dark army.
Talis fell to his knees, dizzy from the exertion, blinded by the sudden outpouring of light.
“What do we do now?” Rikar yelled, and stared at the glowering faces of the other two necromancers.
Talis laughed madly. He’d killed a necromancer and it felt amazing. Not some wild animal in the swamplands. The most feared opponent on the battlefield. A Jiserian necromancer.
After a brief moment of sunlight, the darkness rained down once again. This time it came with a fog so thick it suffocated all visibility. Talis heard a moan that sounded like a soldier being struck. Mara screamed. The sound of steel shattering bone and armor. A deep, booming roar that echoed over the sand, as if the fog itself was the source.
Turning, he charged through the mist towards Mara’s voice, trying to protect her. Out in the edge of the fog, Talis noticed Rikar talking with a shadowy figure. He turned his head towards Talis, as if surprised at being found. The figure disappeared into the fog. Rikar frowned at Talis. What was Rikar doing?
Soon four undead warriors strode towards Talis, leering at him, weapons raised. The fog lifted, and Talis could see they were beaten. Rikar charged at the undead, slicing off a leg and kicking another over. Talis joined in, severing the other two in half.
But the necromancers, hovering fifty feet off the ground, shot a stream of grey and black particles towards the slain undead, causing them to reassemble back to life. The undead warriors shook their fists above their heads and glowered at Talis. Looking around, Talis could see they’d lost. Almost every soldier from the party had been slain or beaten down. The undead surrounded them and the necromancers floated down to gloat over their victory.
“We can’t die like this,” Talis said, edging close to Rikar.
“Dying is for quitters,” Rikar said, and raised a ruby to his lips. He whispered a name, a name that Talis could barely hear, a name that sounded familiar, like from his nightmares. Aurellia… The ruby glowed red and bits of silver shimmered inside.
Instantly, it was dark again, so dark, Talis couldn’t see his hands.
A rumbling sound, as if millions of bison charged across a plain. Then a whooshing sound, like when the wind from a storm races through the trees. Brilliant lights pierced the darkness, forming a magical portal, filled with shadows and light.
An ancient man, face distorted and leathered, wearing a black hooded robe, stepped through the portal and glanced around, chuckling to himself like he knew some secret joke. He rammed his ruby-tipped staff into the sand. An explosion of red and orange and silver light shot out in all directions and vaporized the undead warriors and horses.
“Be banished to eternal night,” he said, his voice slow and slurred, and he aimed his staff at the bald necromancer, and pointed a finger at the other. A rift appeared in the sky and moans and screams of agony from a million dead souls cried out from that rift, as if the sound came from the torments of the Underworld.
The necromancers were pulled (or rather the darkness enveloped them) into the rift and they fought and shrieked against the force, but in the end lost the struggle.
And then the shadow portal came to the old man, rushed over him, and consumed him, until he too disappeared.
The air was clear. The sun was strong. The wind, cold from the north.
12. THE NORTHLANDS
After the dust settled, Talis felt the cold dew falling, sending a chill under his skin. He’d searched through the bodies, bones and fetid flesh and soldiers still dying, trying to find Mara and Nikulo. Rikar helped, illuminating the night with a shimmering orb, turning over bodies, revealing the hideous faces of undead and former living alike. Finally, a trembling lump lifted itself up, a dirtied face staring around in horror at the destruction.
It was Mara! Talis felt a wave of relief and joy washing over him like a warm summer rain.
“I was so worried…I’d thought you were killed,” Talis said. “Thank the gods you survived.”
“What are you doing here?” Rikar eyes went wide.