Chapter B2C37 - Smoke and Fire

Chapter B2C37 - Smoke and Fire

“Is that smoke?” Tyron squinted into the distance.

The early morning light seemed thin in the foothills, the fog that rolled off the mountains lasted until the sun was high overhead on cold days. Even so, the dirty streak that stained the sky seemed to trace its origin down to a point on the ground.

“I don’t fucking know, you fuck! Why do you insist on saying this shit out loud?”

“Shut up, Dove,” the Necromancer muttered absently as he continued to examine the sky.

The more he looked, the more the sense of disquiet in his chest grew. It was smoke, he was sure of it now. Perhaps a remote village was burning off rubbish? Or a hearthfire had gotten out of control?

Both scenarios were unlikely.

“We’ll go check it out,” he decided. “Someone might need help.”

Here on the edge of the empire, assistance was hard to come by, speaking mildly. Settlements were far apart, with almost nothing in between.

“You can’t be serious,” the skull exclaimed. When Tyron didn’t reply, preoccupied issuing mental commands to his minions, Dove continued. “You are serious. Fucking hero complex is going to get your balls lopped off, kid, and yours are massive, the blood loss will be insane. Probably make you more mobile, though. You could lose the wheelbarrow.”

“If a village is under attack all the way out here, the Slayers and marshals aren’t going to see it,” he defended his decision. “We’re probably the only ones who see the smoke, so we should go and help.”

“You see the smoke, I don’t see shit,” the skull refuted from his position on a corner post. “By the by, aren’t you supposed to be fleeing south in order to avoid getting your face murdered off by angry Slayers? If one of them does turn up to this little emergency, you’re completely fucked. You get that, right?”

There was merit to what his friend and mentor had to say. Even so....

“Everything I’ve done has been to grow strong enough to help others. What will have been the point of any of it if I don’t help defend these people? I haven’t mutilated and murdered my way through the Western Province for my own personal gratification!”

By the end, Tyron’s voice had grown quite heated, eyes filled with anger bore down on Dove, who held his ethereal tongue. He disagreed with the young Mage, but felt it would be wiser not to argue. A part of Tyron wanted to help others, to be sure. Dove knew he was a good kid at heart, but another part of him, a larger part, refused to accept life as an ordinary person. He would blaze a trail as his parents had, or die trying.

Eyes focused on the smoke in the distance, Tyron wordlessly directed his skeletons, ghosts and revenants over the terrain. Even with eight of his minions now hooked to the cart, traversing the uneven ground was still painfully slow.

The procession was a more impressive, or fearsome, sight than it had been before. A full forty skeletons were arrayed around it now, along with his four revenants, still burning with their inner fire. Less visible were the ghosts, who still drifted silently in a loose formation around the cart over a hundred metres out. They were a poor early warning system, but they were all he had.

It took over an hour for them to cover the distance, the smoke growing thicker in the air as they drew closer. Tyron’s heart clenched over the journey, worried that whatever had caused the blaze would have been over and done with by the time he arrived.

Shouts, screams and inhuman chittering of the rift-kin could be heard drifting through the air before he laid eyes on the village itself.

“They’re under attack!” he yelled, throwing himself off the side of the cart and scrabbling for his sword.

“Isn’t that what you thought was happening?” Dove yawned.

Ignoring his advisor, he urged his minions to drop the wagon, eliciting a squawk from the skull as he rattled on his perch.

“Careful, you bony fuckheads!”

Ordering the eight cart pullers to protect the supplies, Tyron rushed forward with the others. He demanded more speed from his minions, and they responded, drawing deeper on his magick to fuel their unliving forms.

Extra energy flowing from him to almost forty undead was an unpleasant sensation, to say the least. Fortunately, he’d advanced to the point he could sustain it, though not for long.

You want to fight....

Whoever he had been, this slayer had known his purpose. Even in death, it burned in his soul. His duty had been to kill rift-kin, and so it remained.

“Go,” Tyron flicked his jaw toward the monsters, along with a mental command.

The pressure on his mind, which he hadn’t been fully aware of, eased immediately. A skeleton couldn’t display emotion, but perhaps there was a tiny hint of gratitude in the posture of his minion?

He likely imagined it.

His best servant would do its job well. Tyron should make sure he performed his. He raised his hands once more and snapped through the complex incantations, bringing down the Shivering Curse.

Unaffected, his skeletons continued their work, but the rift-kin struggled in the piercing cold. The diameter of the curse wasn’t enormous, only ten metres across, but it was enough to impact the majority of the fighting.

With those two spells cast, it was time for Tyron to turn to other, less impactful magicks.

Briefly, the Mage considered his options. He could throw magick bolts, but he didn’t have a good angle from his current position at the rear of the formation. The other option was to try to dominate the mind of a stronger rift-kin, but he wasn’t keen to freeze himself during an ongoing melee. He would have to turn to his new spell.

Once again, the words rolled from his tongue and his hands flicked through Arcane sigils, summoning and shaping the magick with proficient ease. This was far from an economical spell, its cost exceeded Dominate Mind by a factor of two, but the effect would hopefully be worth it.

When the spell completed, Tyron stretched out a hand toward the largest monster he could see. Despite knowing vaguely how it would function, he was still surprised by what he saw next.

Flecks of black magick swarmed like locusts through the air, taking on the shape of a grasping, clawed hand. Ignored by his skeletons, the flecks buzzed through and around the undead, forming, scattering and reforming with dizzying speed until they were upon the intended target.

Without thinking, he snapped his hand closed, and the claw mirrored his action. Formed from thousands of small shards made of Death Magick, the hand snapped shut around the monster, who immediately froze, then began to writhe and bellow.

The spell wouldn’t last forever, and Tyron was keen to see how long it took the kin to break free, but he had to continue to assist his minions in the fight.

Since he didn’t need to maintain the spell, he began to cast it again, dipping further into his rapidly vanishing reserves to form it once more.

When complete, he reached out and the same thing happened, the claw formed of black shards flew through the air and surrounded the kin, snapping shut around it when he clenched his fist.

That’s about as much as I can do.

What energy he still possessed would be required to fuel his skeletons. With the revenant now active in the fight, he wouldn’t be able to maintain even that minimal output for long. Pushing his skeletal form to its limits, the once-slayer now undead was fast and deadly, his sword flashing with far greater accuracy and force than the other skeletons. The comparison wasn’t correct in the first place, the difference between the average minion and the former slayer was like night and day.

Of course, that performance came at a cost.

Tyron stood impassively, directing his minions as best he could until the fighting was over. It ended suddenly, the final rift-kin screeching as it was impaled by a dispassionate skeleton, and then silence reigned on the field.

Almost surprised, Tyron looked about, and only then did he notice that no villagers had emerged to assist him in disposing of the attackers. It shouldn’t be surprising.

They probably think they jumped from the frying pan and landed in the fire.

Should he just walk away? Some supplies and a hot meal wouldn’t go astray....

With a shrug, he advanced toward the barricade, bringing his undead with him.