Rise of the Necromancer

by Deck Davis

  Given the limitations of Reanimate, it cost much less essence to cast. He could use it, command the bison to get off him, and still have essence left for Health Harvest.

  Not only that, but the bison would be wholly under his command. It would be half-dead, yet still able to move. It could become his pack animal, without the added burden of needing to eat or drink, and it would never tire under the Toil sun. The poor beast would do whatever Jakub commanded. If he told it to, it would walk for miles and miles, stopping only when its tendons and muscles wore away to dust. He could even ride it. It’d be slow as hell, but if his legs were pulverized…

  It was the only way, right? It had to be. Then again…

  If he could find a way to get the animal’s dead weight off him without using magic, not only would that leave all his essence intact, but he could drain more essence from the bison itself. After all, necromancers gained their power from draining essence from the dead, and a bison would give him a decent bounty.

  If he used Reanimate, the bison’s essence would leave it. He couldn’t reanimate it and then drain essence, nor could he drain essence and then reanimate it. One or the other.

  He briefly considered waiting for a smaller creature to approach, killing it, and then reanimating it. After that, he could somehow write a message and then send his new beast across the desert to find someone who could help. The problem there was that there were no other creatures nearby, and he had nothing to write with.

  Not only that, but he doubted a smaller animal would make it all the way across Toil without a larger predator catching it. Then his essence would have been wasted. No, that idea was as unpractical as it was fanciful.

  He either reanimated the bison and used it as a pack animal, spending some of his essence to do it. Or he got the damn thing off his legs and then took all its essence from it, saving it for later use. Essence would be precious out here. He might need every shred of it he could find to heal himself.

  CHAPTER 6

  Evening stalked him like a tiger on the hunt, catching up to him quicker than he expected.

  Although he was glad that the sun was retreating, dread slithered through him. There was nothing out here. No mana lamps, no torch glows, nothing. Just endless darkness that got thicker by the minute. Silence broken only by sinister sounds that could have been miles away, could have been feet away. Sun Toil was hell for people, but some creatures thrived here.

  The thing that worried Jakub most was the not knowing. The idea of perfect darkness that would soon mask everything, that things could crawl, slither or fly toward him with no warning.

  Maybe there was a warning system he could use, though. Its name was Ludwig.

  Ludwig was his bound creature; a hound with a heart softer than melted butter, who just happened to be a semi-demonic entity who lived in the land between life and death. No big deal; every necromancer had one.

  Jakub could summon Ludwig. As a Greylands entity, the physical world would not affect Ludwig. He wouldn’t feel the heat of the day or the cold of the night. Nothing, save fellow demonic entities, could hurt him. He could roam for miles without tiring. He could scout for Jakub, find the rest of the caravan if any of them had survived. They might have gathered together and set out to try and escape Sun Toil, understandably believing Jakub to be dead.

  Not only would Ludwig be a scout for Jakub, but there was something else. Jakub could use the company. He wanted his best friend here.

  It seemed like a great idea, but something was anchoring him down. A big anchor made of crap.

  It cost essence to summon Ludwig, and he was a constant essence drain while he was here. It would deplete his soul necklace in less than an hour, with no guarantee Ludwig would find help before it did. If he didn’t, Jakub would have wasted his essence on nothing, and he’d be in the same position except without even the few options he had now.

  That meant no company for Jakub. No comforting appearance of his friend.

  Lacking a friend, he decided to name the bison currently trapping him in place. He named him Ben.

  “Please to meet you, Ben,” he said, and the weakness of his voice worried him. “Be a friend and get up, will you? No? Okay, let’s see if I can help this along.”

  After thinking about it, he’d decided to keep Reanimate as his second option. Although a pack animal would be useful, he needed to make sure he could cast Health Harvest on all his wounds. No point getting the bison off him if his legs were so pulverized he couldn’t walk.

  That meant shifting almost half a ton of dead weight off his legs, when he was already weak from vomiting and dehydration and the piece of wood sticking out of his stomach.

  At first glance, he had nothing to work with, but mages are a curious breed of people. It was a truth known commonly through the queendom that mages - and necromancers in particular - love pockets. Any scrap of clothing was real estate ripe for a pocket, and it was said you could tell a mage was coming a mile away from the jingle and rattle of all his pocket crap when he walked.

  Maybe that was why mages didn’t make very good thieves.

  In any case, Jakub had pockets. Not as many as he’d hoped; he’d brought his necromancer robes and coat with him on the trip through Sun Toil, but they were stored in his case in one of the disappearing wagons.

  Damn it. Not only had taking off his robes and coat robbed him of his necromancer look – rolled-up sleeves and sweat made him look more like a farmer than practitioner of dead magic – but most of these random pockets were sewn into those garments.

  All he had now was his shirt and his trouser pockets, and Ben was currently making his trouser pockets inaccessible.

  He had eight pockets sewn into his shirt. That sounded like a lot to most people. One breast pocket was standard. Maybe two; one on each breast.

  Jakub had used every part of his shirt to make a pocket while still keeping it light, and it was honestly a feat of magic that the tailor he’d paid to do it had done so well. Then again…it was a feat of magic. The tailor was an artificer, adept at weaving harmless magic into ordinary things. Jakub was so thankful to him that he could have kissed the guy if he was here.

  He searched them now, emptying each pocket in turn. There was one on each breast, one on either side near his hips, and four sewn into the inside of the shirt. After unbuttoning his shirt and checking the inside pockets, he put all his items on his now-naked chest and left his shirt unfastened.

  Pressing a tattoo on his wrist, his glyphlines cataloged the items and displayed them as a list in front of him.

  Inventory

  Steel Twine

  A coil of twine, barely thicker than thread. Flexible as normal thread, yet strengthened with steel.

  Heat-Leave-Me Salve [5% full]

  A yellow-colored cream in a metal tin. Just a thin application can protect skin from the sun

  Iron Dagger

  A hand-length dagger with an iron blade and wooden hilt

  Iron Chest Key

  A key from Jakub’s personal chest in his room at the academy

  Tales of the Wind Caller

  A short anthology of stories about Argus, The Wind Caller

  Vagrant Blade

  A magical sword that turns the holder into a vagrant. Repeated and prolonged uses can permanently alter a person’s appearance.

  Bracelet of Rest

  A magic bracelet that makes the user feel rested no matter how long it has been since sleeping. Wearing the bracelet builds up a sleep debt that must be paid when removed.

  ¼ Bottle Ames’ Firelick Liquor

  Flint

  Magnesium Flakes

  10 gold coins

  24 silver coins

  103 bronze coins

  Seeing his inventory didn’t fill him with rays of sunlight. Besides, he was sure to get more than enough sunlight unless he found a way out of the thousands of miles wide desert.

  The only things that could help now were the steel twine and his dagger. With his twine he could
tie part of it around the bison’s body and part around a tree, making a crude hoist. Easy! He just needed a tree. And the ability to stand up.

  Damn.

  Otherwise, he could use his dagger to cut through the bison to free himself, but it’d take the best part of the night, maybe even all the next day to saw through a full bison carcass using his dagger. Not only would he cover himself in blood and guts, and possibly attract toil-lusks hungry for protein, but he would render the animal corpse completely useless.

  He needed something else. Something that didn’t involve phantom trees or energy he didn’t have or gallons of bison blood.

  He pushed his inventory items off his chest and onto the ground beside him. He’d repack them later.

  Right now, he needed another solution.

  CHAPTER 7

  Jakub had a drunk’s dry mouth and thumping headache, but with none of the sense of having a good time. He swallowed, and his spit seemed to dink-dink-dink down his throat like a rock tumbling off a cliff. His lips were cracked, splitting on the bottom, and his waist and legs throbbed with pain.

  But at least he had decided.

  The longer he waited, the more his body would use up what little liquid remained inside it. The more danger there was of toil-lusks finding him, or of any of the other venomous Sun Toil critters coming to investigate the hapless necromancer lying on the ground.

  If the caravan was still out there, if they had assumed him dead and carried on with their journey, he couldn’t let them get too far away. If he could catch up to what remained of Gunar’s party, then he had a way out of Sun Toil. Alone, he had as much chance of surviving the desert as a flea leaping into a volcano.

  That was thinking ahead, and right now Jakub had the present to deal with. That present being a wound in his torso and a giant bison on his legs, one of which was starting to turn purple.

  Holding his soul necklace, he focused on the animal and spoke the spellword of Reanimate. It was strange, hearing his voice in a desert that had been quiet for hours. Almost like he’d broken the silence with forbidden sounds.

  Threads of light spun out from the necklace, crossing the air and wrapping around the bison like hands of light. They seeped into the animal through every orifice, finding ways through its eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears, and rectum.

  Essence remaining: [II ]

  The bison stirred. A kick of a hind leg. A faint snort.

  Jakub braced himself for the pain now, not knowing what to expect when the bison fully reanimated and its weight left his legs. He didn’t want pain, but he hoped for it, because pain meant sensation, it meant he might have some control over his legs. Numbness was the enemy.

  The bison kicked out. A dagger of agony shot through his thighs. Sweet, hot agony. It gave him hope that if he could feel something, maybe the damage to his legs wasn’t as bad as he thought.

  Necromancy EXP Gained!

  EXP to next lvl: [IIIIIIIII ]

  The bison blinked. Its nostrils flared but that was more out of instinct than anything, because the beast didn’t need air now. This showed in its eyes; dull, lifeless, lacking the shine that showed on the stare of living creatures.

  “Get up,” he told it.

  The animal, now an animated puppet under his command, struggled to its feet. It lost balance on its front right leg, and Jakub’s breath caught, and he tried to move before it crashed down on him, but could only shuffle back a few centimeters.

  Righting itself, the bison stood up fully. Its hide was coarse and short, more skin than hair really, but it was no ordinary bison. Gunar bought beasts bred for desert work, ones accustomed to pulling heavy loads in burning heat. There was a branding on its thigh, a reddened ‘GH-7’, but no sign of any wounds.

  It would have been a fearsome animal in life if handled wrongly. A bison could crush a man’s skull without much effort. A few weeks earlier, Jakub had revived a Great Dane dog that had chased a squirrel onto a path, only to get caught under the hooves of a bison-driven wagon.

  Where the bison had been under Gunar’s control in life, so this was under Jakub’s in death. There was nothing to fear from it now, and he’d need to rely on its strength.

  “Back away a few steps,” he said.

  The bison’s feet thumped on the ground as it gave Jakub some space. Just like that, his legs felt a little lighter.

  He was free!

  The gratitude he felt now was peculiar, and he would have been at a loss to explain how it felt. He guessed the only way a person could appreciate how it felt to be free of the weight of a dead bison on their legs, would be to lie on the ground with a dead bison on their legs…and then be free of it.

  His sense of triumph was short-lived as pain ripped through him. It was as though the beast’s weight on him had been holding the pain down, and this was like whipping away the cover and letting it run free. It was enough to knock the air out of him.

  Breathe, he told himself. And then he stopped just telling himself to breathe and did it, and found that actually breathing was much better than telling yourself to do it.

  As the pain ebbed, Jakub focused on his new bison friend. “Back away a few more steps,” he told it.

  It snorted and took four steps backward, leaving space between them.

  Jakub held his soul necklace now and checked the essence.

  Soul Necklace

  Essence Remaining: [II ]

  Using his Reanimate spell had drained as much essence as he’d expected, but it still cast darkness in him to see his necklace so empty, the same way a hunter might feel dread when he reached to his quiver and swiped thin air. The meager amount of essence left room for one more spell. Something low-level.

  It left enough essence for one cast of Health Harvest to heal a single wound. That wasn’t too reassuring when Jakub had at least two wounds, and he didn’t want to decide between stopping a potential infection in his torso, and being able to use his legs.

  Time to check them, see the damage, and then prioritize. Did he heal whatever harm had been done to them, or did he focus on the injury on his waist?

  Removing the wooden rod without casting Health Harvest afterward would leave him open to blood loss and infection. But then, if his legs were too battered for him to walk on them, he’d die here on the ground.

  Did he want to face the end in a gangrene-induced delirium caused by the wound, or a thirst-induced delirium courtesy of not being able to move from here to find water?

  Such an appealing decision to make. Was it his birthday?

  But maybe there was a third option.

  Usually, when he cast Health Harvest, he would direct it to a specific injury and concentrate the healing there.

  Maybe if he concentrated on his waist and legs as he cast it, the healing light would divide itself. It would be diluted, spreading over a much larger surface area than usual. That’d make it weaker, but it would help both his torso and legs.

  Then again, what if the wounds were so bad that a diluted health harvest spell healed neither satisfactorily? He’d still be stuck here. In a little less pain, but still stuck.

  Time heals all wounds, he told himself. Except for the really bad ones. Time won’t do shit for those.

  It was time to see what damage his legs had taken. That meant carefully sitting up as far as he could without pain stabbing at him from all angles. He unbuttoned his trousers and carefully shimmied them down so he could see his thighs.

  His stomach churned. “Look away, Ben,” he told his bison friend. “You don’t need to see this.”

  The cosmos of bruises on right thigh looked like the sky on a clear night, the kind of night where a man could see distant galaxies of color if he looked hard enough for long enough. A swirl of purple with an inner yellow. Sensitive, as if even looking at the bruise was enough to make his nerves start yelling.

  His left thigh had the same splodge of color but smaller, having taken less of the weight. Now that he’d seen the damage to his thighs Jakub become more
aware of it, and his right leg began to throb.

  “A bruise never killed anyone,” he told Ben. “I’ll live. Sorry, don’t mean to rub it in.”

  His legs weren’t broken and as bad as his bruises looked, they would heal on their own. It meant that once he dealt with his torso he could get to his feet and start to walk, and that’d help with his circulation, too.

  The cold seeped through him now. It wasn’t just the fading of the sun; this was his shock response growing roots, getting stronger. It helped him make his decision.

  The last dregs of his essence were useless if he could barely move. He needed to fix himself, and then he could try and track the caravan.

  He eyed the rod sticking from him, and he winced. Taking out his dagger, he put the hilt between his teeth and bit down to hold it in place.

  Now he touched the rod. He felt nothing, but that wouldn’t last long. Even the numbness of shock couldn’t protect him from what he needed to do next.

  Every instinct in him told him to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. He stared at the rod, at his hand around it.

  And then he pulled.

  A galaxy of pain exploded in him. It traveled through him from nerve to nerve, until it reached its skull and he felt it as a rush so strong that all he could do was breathe, breathe, breathe to stop passing out.

  He spat out the dagger. Saliva flew from his lips. Had he been anywhere but the most desolate place in the queendom, the cry he gave would have made passers-by think a dragon was dying.

  His dizziness slackened its grip. He wiped his lips on the crook of his arm. He held the rod in his left hand, and his grip must have been tighter than he realized because he held it so strongly that it had left red marks on his palm.