Bone Lord 5

by Dante King

  A great cheer erupted from the defenders, and I could feel their weary spirits and drained bodies being re-energized by fresh inspiration.

  “No longer will you cower within these walls while the enemy wears you down, like so many drops of water eating away at a rock over thousands of years! Tonight, when darkness falls, we will bring the fight to them, and all the powers of Death will be with us. Ready your armor, sharpen your weapons, and fill your hearts with courage, for tonight, my loyal soldiers, we vanquish the invaders and paint the fields of Brakith red with their blood!”

  Another cheer boomed through the streets of Brakith. Even the half-dead citizens who were lying in the gutters, weakened to the point of immobility by starvation and thirst, raised their emaciated bodies and their skeletally thin arms, curling their hands into determined fists.

  “No more starvation, no more thirst, no more deprivation!” I yelled, now addressing the citizens. “Tonight, my steadfast citizens, you will feast on the choicest fare and the finest wine, and fill your bellies to the point of bursting. After we’ve won this battle, you’ll feast like kings on all the lavish fare I’ll take from the dead Church of Light commanders and their supply wagons. Their decapitated heads will watch you feast on their food from the spikes above the gates I’ll stick ‘em on!”

  The citizens gave a feeble but enthusiastic cheer. I strode off, filled with a fresh sense of determination and purpose. My party companions had heard my rousing speech and had gathered in a group in front of the castle.

  “Lord Vance, it’s … you? Sort of?” Rollar stared at me with one eyebrow raised and an expression of half-wonder, half confusion on his face. Being Fated, he could see through the illusion put on by the Beauty Mirror.

  “It’s me in everything but body,” I said, “and even that’s pretty close. Just act as if this idiot’s body is, for all intents and purposes, mine. I hope you’re all ready for one hell of a battle tonight, because I’m fired up to fight and obliterate this Church of Light army.”

  “I’ve had a chance to patrol all of the walls,” Rollar said, “and to thoroughly assess the situation. We’re heavily outnumbered, as you’ve no doubt seen, but the numbers don’t tell the whole story. I know that the Church conscripts will have barely had any training; back when I was with the Church of Light Army, it used to take us at least six months minimum to get a peasant boy into fighting shape. And by fighting shape, I mean barely able to deliver one or two swings of a sword, and not piss his pants at the first sign of battle. To get your average peasant levy into an effective fighting man takes at least a year, and the experience of a battle or two. The vast majority of these troops have had none of those, and they’ve barely been in the army for a month or two. If we can present them with a truly awesome and utterly frightening display of force, I think well over half of the bastards will simply drop their weapons and flee. They have no more interest in fighting you than any peasant does, and they’ve simply been forced into this campaign by the threats issued by Elandriel.”

  Everything Rollar was saying was germinating the seeds of an idea. Now that I’d been able to completely possess the body of the actor and control it as if it was my own, I had an idea on how to destroy a large portion of the invading army from within.

  “They’ll piss their pants when my undead wyrm bursts out of the ground from under their feet,” I said. “And then they’ll shit themselves when an army of undead harpies descends on them from the midnight sky. But I know an even more insidious method to wreck this Church Army from within. I’m going to need a light crossbow and some bolts. A child’s crossbow, one of those little ones that kids hunt rats and squirrels with would be ideal.”

  “Uh, Lord Vance, you can’t do much to a man—especially an armored man—with a weak weapon like that,” Rollar said. “It’ll likely deal out a good sting and draw a little blood, but aside from that it’ll do nothing but piss them off.”

  “I don’t need to hurt or incapacitate the enemy soldiers with this weapon,” I said with a grin. “I just need to infect them. Rollar, find me a child’s crossbow and some bolts. Anna-Lucielle, I’m going to need your Charm powers for this plan too. Everyone else, get your armor and weapons ready for battle. We’re going to hit these motherfuckers when complete darkness falls, which will be soon … and we’re going to hit them hard.”

  While everyone else prepared themselves for battle, and I suited up in my gleaming black plate armor, Rollar found me a small child’s crossbow and some bolts for it. Using the Dragon Sword, my Death magic, and Anna-Lucielle’s Charm powers, I enchanted the child’s crossbow bolts with the same alchemical blend of powers that I’d used on the bone hairpin. With these enchanted bolts, anyone I shot would become a viable vessel for my spirit to control, and I could possess them as easily and effectively as I’d possessed the actor’s body.

  “All right, Rollar,” I said, once I’d finished creating these enchanted projectiles, “it’s time to do some sniping. And using these simple little bolts, I’ll sow the seeds of mutiny in the Church Army.”

  By the time we headed out onto the ramparts of the city walls to locate some targets for my new weapon, darkness had already fallen. The sky was clear, though, and the moon above us was bright, illuminating the enemy encampments surrounding the city with bright silvery blue light. I could easily see clearly enough to pick out targets.

  “Who are you going to infect with your power, Lord Vance?” Rollar asked.

  “Raw recruits, new conscripts,” I answered as I cocked the crossbow for the first shot. “They don’t want to be here and likely hate the Church for forcing them to leave their fields and families. Their minds will be a lot more susceptible to receiving the kind of message I’m going to implant in them than some battle-hardened crusading knucklehead who’s been brainwashed by Church propaganda for years.”

  “How will you know who’s who?”

  “Easy,” I answered, taking aim at a soldier a hundred yards from the walls. “You think the Church’s stingy commanders will waste good armor and weapons on their conscripted troops? These peasants are here only to boost numbers and to serve as arrow fodder, to take the heat off the more valuable regular Church troops. The conscripts are very easy to spot. Plus, the conscripted peasants are much more likely to be scowling and grumbling instead of walking around with the usual pompous broomstick-up-the-ass expression you usually find on the faces of holier-than-thou Church veterans. And I’m just lining up one of these discontented motherfuckers in my sights right now.”

  The soldier I was taking aim at was most certainly a recent conscript. The only armor the young, lanky man was wearing was a boiled leather cap and a haggard old leather breastplate, which he had on backward. I could see from the way he held the rusty sword the Church had forced into his hands that he barely had a clue on how to swing it.

  “Here’s a little taste of freedom, you sorry son of a bitch,” I whispered as I lined him up in the sights of the crossbow. “It’s gonna sting a little, but you’ll thank me later.”

  I squeezed the trigger and watched the flimsy bolt arc through the night air. A second or two later, it slammed into the conscript’s unarmored arm. A jolt of energy ripped through me the moment the projectile pierced his flesh; the connection had been established. He yelped with pain and swatted at his arm, thinking he’d been stung by a wasp. When he saw the little crossbow bolt embedded in his arm, though, he chuckled and pulled it out.

  “Hey, lads!” he said to a group of fellow conscripts nearby. The enchantment I’d placed on him meant I could hear through his ears. “They must be getting really desperate behind the walls of Brakith. They just shot at me with one of those child’s crossbows!”

  “Praise the gods,” another muttered sourly. “Hopefully that means these Church bastards will let us go home soon. If I don’t get back to my field in the next two weeks, the crops will rot and my family will starve over winter!”

  I now took control of the first conscript’s body. I fe
lt a surge of alarm and fear tear through him as my spirit entered him, but his will was war too feeble and weak to contend with mine.

  “Fuck Elandriel and the Church of Light!” I yelled via the conscript. “They’re not only starving the people in this city; they’re going to starve all of us too because they’re keeping us away from our fields and preventing us from harvesting our crops! Why are we even here? I don’t have no quarrel with the people of Brakith, they never did anything to us.”

  “Fuckin’ right mate, fuckin’ right!” another conscript shouted. “Fuck this soldiering business. We’re not even getting paid for this or compensated in any way for the crops we’re losing. The Church isn’t even pretending to care about us anymore. They’ve made their contempt for us and our families clear enough, haven’t they, lads?”

  “They don’t give a fuck about our lives, boys!” I made the first conscript yell. “We’re nothing but arrow fodder for them. See how they make us camp near the city walls, where all the arrows and crossbow bolts fall, while all the commanders and regular Church crusaders are camped at the back, out of range! Fuck them! They’re our enemies, not the people of Brakith. They’re just trying to defend their home, which the fucking Church is attacking out of spite!”

  “Aye!” a bunch of them roared, now that the rebellion was gathering steam.

  “What’s this stupid fight about anyway?” a man shouted. “Elandriel says it’s about the crimes of Lord Chauzec, but I haven’t seen any evidence that Lord Chauzec did anything wrong. He and the Temple of Necrosis ridded the land of many evils that the Church did nothing about. But now we’re being forced to fight them. Bah, fuck this!”

  “These cowards are forcing us to do their dirty work,” I yelled, barely even having to exert much control over the conscript now, since he too was getting caught up in the spirit of the mutiny, “but there’s way more of us than there are of them … and unlike when they came into our villages and rounded us up and forced us at sword point to join this army, we’ve got weapons and armor now. We weren’t able to resist them then, but we are now!”

  I pulled my spirit out of the conscript; I’d started enough of a fire there, and it was spreading like an inferno across a dry field. Rollar and I watched with a growing sense of satisfaction as the contagion spread.

  “Come on,” I said, “let’s move on to another section. I’ve got a lot more of these enchanted bolts to shoot, and a full-scale army mutiny to foment.”

  After an hour, I’d been around the entire length of the city walls and had infected Church of Light conscripts with my contagion in all sections of the army. By this time, Church commanders had gotten wind of what was going on, since large masses of conscripts were yelling and getting into a rebellious mood, and I could see them assembling squadrons of veteran troops to put down these mutinies before they had the chance to break out on a massive scale.

  Now, while the Church troops were squabbling among themselves and the commanders were distracted by the sudden and alarming outbreak of a potential full-scale revolt, it would be the perfect time to attack. I returned to the castle to address my party, who were all armored up and ready for battle.

  “The Battle of Brakith started when Elandriel and his asshole commanders decided to attack and attempt to destroy my city,” I said to them, “and it’s been intensifying ever since they invaded. But up until now, it’s been a one-sided affair, with my guards and townsfolk, all heavily outnumbered, doing what they can to defend this city against the relentless attacks by the Church. But now, my friends, I’ve turned the tables on those who would destroy me and everything associated with me. I’ve started a mutiny within the Church of Light Army. When we open the gates and charge out of this, my living zombie moles in the Church Army will turn their weapons on their sergeants and commanders. They think they’ve got us outnumbered a hundred to one, but half of their army is about to turn against them!”

  “What a deliciously wicked plan, Vance!” Isu remarked, her pale eyes gleaming in the bright moonlight. Her hands were glowing yellow-green, ready to unleash clouds of virulently acidic mist that would melt men’s faces off their skulls.

  “It’s a plan that’s going to crush the core of the Church Army,” I said, “and grind my enemies into dust. Did any of you feel the slight tremors in the earth a few minutes ago? That was the wyrm, arriving under the battlefield. I’m going to devastate the most elite units—the Consecrated Knights and Resplendent Crusaders divisions—with the wyrm. They’ll be obliterated. And then, for the rest of the veteran divisions—those who aren’t desperately fighting tens of thousands of rebelling peasant troops, anyway—my army of undead harpies will descend from the skies. And for the Church troops who aren’t caught in the midst of all of this chaos…”

  “We smash!” Drok snarled, slamming his massive fist into his meaty palm.

  “Damn right, my barbarian friend, damn right.” I smiled darkly. “Elyse, you’re able to harness the light of the full moon in much the same way as you would the sun, right?”

  “That’s correct, Vance,” she said.

  “Good. Then you fry those Church commanders and fighting bishops; fry them in their armor and melt its steel. Burn the fuckers alive, give ‘em a taste of justice!”

  “Oh, they’ll taste justice tonight, Vance.” She clenched her jaw as a hard light flashed across her sultry blue eyes. She had never forgiven the Church of Light leadership for excommunicating her and robbing her of her bishopric.

  “Rami-Xayon, I need you to use your Wind powers to whip up one hell of a dust storm. It’ll add to the chaos and confusion and fragment the shattered Church army even more. The less those assholes can see of what’s happening, the better. A thick dust storm at night, even with the bright moonlight, will make them as good as blind.”

  “I’ll conjure a dust storm so intense they’ll barely be able to breathe.” Rami-Xayon gave me a firm nod, her dark eyes gleaming with intensity.

  “Rollar, you’ll lead the charge out of the city gates on your undead direbear. I’ll support you from the sky, with Talon flying me in. Meet me on the battlefield; Talon will drop me in the center of the commanders’ square, and there we’ll deal with the commanders of the army personally. And you, Drok, you come along right behind Rollar. I want you by my side when we start cutting down Church commanders. Elyse and Isu, you protect our rear while we’re wrecking the Church commanders’ square. And Anna-Lucielle, I know you’re not an elite warrior like the rest of us, but you’re handy with a bow. Do your best to snipe for us from atop the city walls and keep an eye on us; take out anyone you see trying to make any sneak attacks.”

  “I’ll do that, Vance,” she said. She had her panther with her now, and the huge, savage beast was purring like a lap cat, seduced by the goddess’s powerful Charm powers as well as her command of the powers of the Beast Helm.

  “Oh, and send that kitty cat out onto the battlefield to ‘play’ with a few Church soldiers too, huh?” I said to her with a wink.

  “She’ll rip ‘em apart like a cat playing with mice,” Anna-Lucielle said.

  After this, I gave my orders to the Captain of the Guards, who had assembled all the remaining guards and defenders of Brakith to join us on our charge out of the city. They would form our rearguard. After the hammering they’d been taking from the besieging army over the last few weeks, and all the suffering and starvation they and their families had endured, they were champing at the bit to take revenge.

  The Church Army knew I’d sent a few undead harpies to Brakith; they’d seen my party and some supplies being flown into the city. I’d kept the bulk of the harpies back, though, having them perch deep in the mountains behind Brakith, where no scouts from the Church of Light Army could spot them.

  Now that the time for our attack was near, I commanded these hundreds of harpies to fly from their hiding places.

  We all watched the sky to the rear, which was clear and starry … but then a darkness began to blot out the stars, and the
sky grew ever blacker as the army of harpies drew nearer. The flapping of their wings sounded at first like the gentlest whispering of a night breeze, but soon it became a distant droning, and then, as we began to see individual harpies in the moonlight instead of just one ominous black mass, it became a roar.

  Outside the walls of Brakith, my insidious rebellion had almost reached a tipping point. Swords and spears were in the hands of tens of thousands of conscripts who were arguing heatedly with the Church commanders and veteran troops. However, the droning roar of the approaching harpies soon stopped these arguments and made the Church troops—loyalists and rebels alike—look up to the sky. And when they did, I was sure that more than a few of them filled their breeches with shit, for all the stars were gone, and the entire sky above them was black with beating wings and bared claws.

  “Open the gates!” I commanded, with my kusarigama in my hands.

  The gatekeepers whipped the weary, emaciated oxen. As the beasts pulled the wheels and gears, the enormous gates of Brakith slowly opened. They had held firm against the continued assaults from the Church troops, but had been battered to splinters, and one more determined assault would have smashed through them.

  It didn’t matter, though, because there wouldn’t be another assault. This Church Army was about to become my army. Those whom I would slaughter, I would raise as zombies. The living troops who switched allegiance and turned on their Church commanders would serve me too.

  Either way, the enemy force was about to be annihilated.

  I called Talon down, and she picked me up and flew me up over the city walls. I hovered above the enemy, looking down at their commanders as my small but courageous band of warriors and city guards marched out onto the battlefield. I knew Elandriel would be watching this through his supernatural eyes. This fact made the grin on my face even broader. The thought of him watching me destroy and then take his entire army from him filled me with delight.