by Dante King
She stepped back and held the throwing stars up in her palms. Within moments, they had been absorbed, sinking into the dark blood with a hiss as if they had been dipped into cold water fresh from the forge. The chamber suddenly resounded with an ominous whispering, as if 10,000 phantoms had all been summoned—but as quickly as this sound appeared, it was gone, leaving only a charged silence in its wake.
My throwing stars re-emerged from Isu’s blood-hands, and she stepped over and held them out for me again. I took them, and immediately noticed that they had turned black like obsidian. As I tucked them back into their slots on my belt, I saw that my palms were all bloody, but the blood sizzled and evaporated in puffs of dark, curling smoke, leaving my hands clean.
“I have enchanted your throwing stars with necrotic magic. You will find them to be quite effective against your average soldier, but perhaps not so potent against those whose lives are charmed with Fate Threads. Give me more souls, though, and I will imbue your weapons with increasingly potent magic…”
“Thank you, Isu. I—”
“More souls, Vance,” she whispered as the blood sloughed off her, leaving no trace of her exquisite form. “Give me more souls, and you will have everything your heart desires.”
Her voice faded to a whisper, and the last remnants of her shape splashed to the floor in bloody puddles, while a swirl of black smoke in the vague form of a woman rose from where she had been standing and dissipated into the air. I’d wanted to ask her a lot more questions, but I figured they’d have to wait.
“All right, you two,” I said to the skeletons. “Time to get rolling. We’ve got souls to trap and a lordship to take back. I’m not sure how useful you two are gonna be in that, but you can tag along for now. Let’s get out of here.”
I didn’t know if the skeletons understood my language. Right now, I wasn’t feeling any of the electrical tingling that indicated that my powers were accessible; it seemed to appear of its own accord, when I really needed it.
I remembered hearing something about mages learning to wield magical powers, though, that reminded me of this situation. They too struggled to call up their magic at will in the beginning. It seemed to be one of those things that got easier the more you practiced. So, pretty much like most things in life.
I didn’t feel like hanging around the crypt any longer, and since the skeletons weren’t giving me any indication that they had heard or could understand anything I had said, I figured I should just get going and see if they followed me. If not, well, I could probably create more of them anyway.
Without looking at them again, I turned and headed out. I grinned when I heard their skeletal feet clacking on the stone floor behind me. Excellent; I now had two undead bodyguards, and with them being skeletons and all, they wouldn’t be needing food, water, shelter, or pay. Deals didn’t come a lot better than that.
We were heading up the final set of stairs that led out of the crypt when a sudden bright light blazed brighter than sunlight from down in the crypt. The skeletons exploded in twin showers of bone fragments, pulverized by an unseen force.
“What the fuck?” I roared, half surprised, half enraged.
As the bone dust cleared around me, I looked down, shielding my eyes. Against the near-blinding shimmering light, I saw a heavily armored warrior; only his flowing locks of blond hair and gleaming armor of gold showed as more than a mere black against the white backdrop.
“Vile servant of Death!” he said in a pompous voice, drawing a golden greatsword from a sheath on his back. “Unclean resurrector of the dead! Unholy warlock! Prepare, in the name of the God of Light, to die!”
Great, I thought to myself, a paladin. With a roll of my eyes, a weary sigh, and a shake of my head, I turned around completely and made my way back down to kick this self-righteous do-gooder’s ass.
Chapter Three
“Come, do battle with me, you vile creature of darkness!” bellowed the paladin, swinging his greatsword around flamboyantly. “I am a servant of the Holy Flame, a chaste devotee of—”
I snickered, flipping Grave Oath in my hand, switching my grip style to icepick.
“So you’re no good with women. Is that what you’re trying to say, golden boy?” I said, flashing him a savage grin. “Well, I get why that would make you upset and go around starting fights with strangers, but seriously, getting laid isn’t as hard as you think. Just drop that holier-than-thou attitude, maybe work on smiling a bit more, and, uh, the golden armor? Nothing says ‘I’m trying way too hard’ like golden armor, my man.”
Crimson fury flashed across his face. “Enough of your inane babble, unholy fiend. Prepare to die.”
Raising his greatsword high above his head, he charged at me, but I felt no fear. He was a pretentious buffoon, and he deserved to get his soul sucked into my dagger, if only for the way he spoke.
His golden armor may have looked ridiculous, but it was clearly well crafted, and arcane energy rippled from it in golden wisps. This would make things a little harder for me, because, as awesome a weapon as Grave Oath was, it wasn’t designed for piercing heavy plate armor. This didn’t mean that killing this celibate bastard would be impossible, though. It would just be a little more of a challenge than taking out one of Rollar’s bottom-feeding thugs. And I liked challenges, especially of the “how to kill a heavily armored paladin” sort.
As the servant of light stormed at me with his six-foot golden sword, I reached for one of my newly enchanted throwing stars. What better target to test Isu’s necrotic magic than a paladin?
With a leisurely flick of my hand, I sent a razor-sharp throwing star whizzing toward the only unarmored area on the paladin: his face. All the practice over the years meant I could hit a penny at 20 yards without bothering to stop and take aim.
The black star flew straight and fast before it slammed into the paladin’s left cheek, just below his eye. He screamed out in pain and stumbled, the momentum of his charge carrying him forward and almost making him fall flat on his face. The projectile had embedded itself in his skin, but only by a fraction of an inch. I noticed the glowing aura surrounding him and realized he must have had some kind of protection magic. Still, the necrotic throwing star had managed to do more damage than any regular weapon would when faced with such an aura. I watched with grim fascination as the paladin dropped his sword and clutched his face. He dropped to his knees, and, through the gap between his golden gauntlets, I saw black veins spreading across the pale skin of his face in all directions from the point where the star was embedded in his cheek.
It looked like the star had done far more than simply break his protectional barrier and give him a little jab.
I could have darted in at that moment and slit his throat, but I wanted to see the full effect of the necrotic enchantment.
The whole left side of the paladin’s face had turned dark gray now. The flesh, some of which was starting to peel and slough off his face, stank like a rotting corpse. It was clear that some very accelerated decomposition was going on.
“Damn, Isu, that is some dark magic,” I muttered.
I was starting to like her more and more.
Suddenly, a look of intense concentration came over what remained of the paladin’s face. He whispered a few words and yanked off his gauntlets. Then, his fingertips began to glow with a warm, white light. He pressed his glowing hands onto his cheeks, and the rapidly spreading dark gray rot was abruptly halted. After a couple of seconds, its effects were reversed as the gray skin returned to its former pale peach tone. The grimace on his face morphed into a smug grin as the stink of rot and death disappeared from the air.
“You’ll need far more potent evil than that,” he hissed, “if you wish to contend with a true servant of the Lord of Light, you filthy devil. But now,” he continued, slipping his gauntlets back on and picking up his sword, “you die.”
I remembered what Isu had said about the throwing stars and enemies with Fated Threads, and I figured this guy had to be
one of those. No matter; I could handle him with Grave Oath. I’d have to find the chinks in his armor, though, and I might even break a sweat. A few months ago, before I’d found Grave Oath, I would have been pulverized by the bastard.
But now, I wielded the power of Death, and the paladin’s soul would be mine.
I twirled my dagger around in my hands once before bolting straight at him. He whipped his greatsword up into a high guard, expecting me to jump up and attack his vulnerable head with a downward stab. Instead, when I got within two yards of him, I half-lunged forward, feigning the leap. He drew his sword even further up, opening his lower half for an attack.
Instead of jumping, I dropped abruptly down, using the momentum of my sprint to slide under him through his wide-splayed legs. While skidding through, I slashed my dagger through a small slit in his armor at the back of his knee. Armor, however well-made, almost always had a vulnerable spot there. I knew this well from many years of fighting heavily armored goons and wearing full plate armor myself on the odd occasion.
The paladin grunted and staggered forward, unsteady on his wounded leg. I sprang up and spun around, grinning as a heady rush of combat-triggered adrenalin blasted through my veins.
“Come on, holy boy.” I tossed Grave Oath casually from hand to hand. “You wanna dance? Let’s dance.”
Limping on his injured leg, the paladin turned to face me and dropped his greatsword into a more conservative guard. The smug smile had been wiped off his face, replaced rather quickly with an emotion I was all too accustomed to seeing on my enemies’ faces: fear.
“The Lord of Light will infuse my sword with his holiness and enable me to vanquish you, serpent of the shadows,” he snarled. “I will send you back to hell, demon spawn.”
“See,” I said with a smile as we circled each other, “you’re doing it again. You’re trying too hard. ‘Serpent of the shadows,’ ‘demon spawn.’ I mean, I’m flattered, I really am, but you gotta try not to lay it on too thick. Subtlety, man, subtlety. Go find a sage and ask him to explain the word to you.”
“Your arrogance will be your undoing, evildoer!” he roared as he lunged at me with a vicious stab.
I sidestepped, and the razor-sharp blade whistled through the air mere inches from my chest. I ducked a follow-up slash that would have taken the head off a slower opponent, then, rather than jumping backward like a less experienced fighter would have done, I darted in, closing the distance between the paladin and myself and trapping his sword arm in the crook of my elbow. I flipped my dagger into my left hand, then arced it around in a backward stab that would have sunk the blade hilt-deep into his neck and ended the fight.
But I didn’t kill the paladin. I had plans for him.
I stopped the point of Grave Oath a hair’s breadth from his neck.
“I move half an inch, and that’s it; your soul gets sucked into my dagger,” I said.
I could feel his blood turning cold in his veins, and I could taste his fear.
“Then do it, fiend. Kill me,” he challenged in a shaky voice, faking bravery. “The Lord of Light will take my soul, not you. He is far more potent than the black magic of your demonic weapon.”
I whisked my dagger away, gripped his arm with both hands, and swiveled my hips, hurling him over my shoulder and to the ground in one smooth motion. The fall left him winded.
Why hadn’t I killed him right away, when I had the chance? Well, an interesting thought had crossed my mind at that precise moment, when my dagger had hovered above him.
Calling up a skeleton to fight alongside me worked well, but there was something that might be even better. What if I could fight as a skeleton? Controlling it, like a puppet master pulling invisible strings; not just letting it flail about like some strong but dim-witted cave troll but actually controlling its movements with my own speed, skill, and precision?
I’d heard that, before the Death Goddess had grown too weak to tie her threads to those of mortals, necromancers had been able to do exactly this. And now, since I had become a necromancer, I figured I might as well give it a shot. The paladin was the perfect guinea pig, and I could easily vanquish him if he didn’t want to play along.
I stepped back, keeping my eye on him as he gasped futilely for breath. Secure in the knowledge that he wouldn’t be getting up right away, I turned my attention to the closest of the dead soldiers at the bottom of the stairs.
A jolt of dark power surged out from my heart, coursing through my nerves, veins, and muscles before pooling in my fingertips. It was beginning to feel a lot more familiar—and controllable.
Once more, I heard my lips whispering an incantation. It was as familiar to me now as the common tongue.
“Rise again, and serve me.”
As the other one had, this soldier’s corpse exploded in a mess of tattered meat and coagulated blood. From the resulting lifeless heap sprang a man’s skeleton: my new slave—my new gladiator slave.
Or gladiator puppet? I was about to find out.
“Hey, Mr. Holy, your holy holiness,” I said.
He struggled to his feet. “Why spare my life? What dark bargain do you wish to strike with me?”
“One I think you’re going to like.” I gestured at my skeleton, and the paladin’s eyes widened before he reached for the sigil on his chestplate.
“Uh-uh,” I said with a shake of my head. “You could defeat my skeleton with the same trick you used earlier, but then, I would have to kill you. You know I can do it, right?”
“I will not become ensnared in your web of lies.”
“You have only two options: play along, or die.”
“You will simply kill me after you are done pulling your infernal strings.”
I nodded. “Maybe. But you don’t really know, do you?”
The paladin seethed. “Speak your bargain.”
“You’re going to fight this skeleton.” I motioned to my new minion again. “But you don’t get to use whatever magic it was that killed my first two bony buddies, got it? You fight him with your sword only. If you can defeat him, I’ll let you walk away. If you can’t… well, I think you already know what happens then, right?”
He picked up his sword. “Fiendish imp. I’ll send both you and this blasphemous revenant of yours straight back to hell!”
“No magic, holy boy. That’s the rule. Otherwise, I step in and suck your soul out with Grave Oath. And you know I can beat you.”
“Arrogant devil! First, I will hack this abomination limb from limb. Then I will do the same to you. I need no magic for this, only the Lord’s blessed light to guide my sword arm! Have at thee!”
“Just a moment.” I raised my hand, and the paladin paused. “I’ll let you know when to begin the fight. I have to try something first.”
Isu’s presence came with little more than a thought of her. Magic tingled in my fingertips, and it suddenly felt as if my soul had taken a step out of my body, leaping into the skeleton. My soul felt like a stretched-out sinew, still firmly attached to my body but pulled partially out into the skeleton’s.
A sudden rush hit my brain like a blow from a dwarven steel mace. At the same time, it was perhaps like the high of a shaman’s most potent mushroom, but more real than a hallucinogenic trip. Like reality had been kicked up a notch to some sort of hyper-reality, and my senses had doubled in intensity.
In a way, they had; I could now feel everything the skeleton felt, see what he saw. I focused every ounce of concentration on my bony companion. I imagined its limbs and joints being under my complete control.
I took an experimental swing in my mind: a solid right hook. I was pleased to see that the skeleton performed this move in complete synchronization with my imagining of it. Isu be praised, it was working!
There was a large rock near my skeleton’s feet, and it looked like it would serve as an effective, if primitive, bludgeon-type weapon. When I tried to reach for it, the skeleton simply refused to obey.
Damn it. I figured the whole pu
ppet master thing wasn’t as easy as it had momentarily seemed.
“Enough of this dallying!” the paladin yelled before charging at the skeleton.
I willed it to move, but it was just a little too late, and the paladin’s golden sword sheared its left arm off and cut through a few of its ribs. A sharp pain tingled in the left side of my own body and up my arm. Was there some inherent danger in what I was doing?
There was no time to mull over such a question, because the paladin was taking another swipe at my skeleton, trying to lop its head off with a backhand slash, and I was only just able to get my ally to duck. I counter-attacked as if I was standing where the skeleton was, coming out of my crouch to drive an uppercut into his chin with my skeleton’s bony fist. The force of the blow snapped his head back and sent him reeling, but the paladin, for all his pompous righteousness, was a tough bastard. He spat out a mouthful of blood and bounced on his knees in a combat stance, his greatsword at the ready.
“This sinful creation is no match for my sword!” he yelled. “After I smash it to pieces, you will be next, fiend.”
I remembered how strong these skeletons were from my last fight and figured I should try to make maximum use of its abilities. Instead of slugging it out, blow for blow, with this paladin, I was going to trap him.
And then steal his soul.
To goad him into an overzealous attack, I darted forward—my skeleton did, that is—and aimed a jab at his face. He evaded the punch easily enough and followed it up with a slash to my skeleton’s ribs, which I had left wide open. His greatsword smashed through my minion’s ribs, and again, a stinging pain tore through my own side, but my skeleton was tough. A few smashed ribs did nothing to stop it.
Instead of either jumping back or diving in for a swift and brutal counter-attack, I aimed another jab at his face, this time managing to crack his nose. He staggered back, cursing, as pain ripped through his skull and blood trickled from his nostrils. Rage seethed in his eyes.
