by Rosie Scott
The door swung open, and I immediately held a hand out to leech. The black funnel connected to a living being, for it crackled and siphoning life force.
But there was nothing there. My pursuer was invisible.
A bright purple ball of magic summoned in thin air in the doorway, and I reacted by building a ward to protect me from magic. The perpetrator acted first, and the purple energy zipped into my chest.
Skin-crawling terror overcame me as the spell took over my mind and manipulated my emotions. My chest seized with horror; nothing mattered but getting out of here. I dispelled all magic and jumped over the fallen chair, rushing out the open door.
I collided with an invisible body. A female grunt pierced the air before she collapsed on the ground, and I fell on top of her. I saw nothing but leaves and pine needles beneath me, but a woman squirmed between my arms. Metal zipped out of a protective sheath. As I scrambled to stand, an invisible short blade stabbed my left bicep. A frustrated huff sounded out below me; the assassin meant to hit my heart.
Terror still affected my decisions, so I bolted, seeking the solace of the shadowed woods. The scattering of debris echoed behind me as the assassin leapt off the ground and gave chase.
The foreign magic released hold of my mind just as I rushed through a moonlit clearing. With the unexplained fear gone, I thought quickly and summoned a ward to avoid further magic and a shield to fend off the assassin's blades. Newly protected from both types of attacks, I scanned the area and grabbed the first weapon I saw: a fallen tree branch.
Pine needles sprayed toward me as the invisible assassin skidded to a stop in the clearing. I swung the tree branch at the location, surprised when I missed her entirely. Two footfalls landed a second later like she dodged the hit.
Shing-shing-shing-shing!
A flurry of dual blade hits to my left weakened my shield. I spun, swinging the branch through the air. Footsteps scrambled back, dodging the swing easily. I threw the branch to the ground; it was too slow.
I summoned two leeching funnels and spread my arms out, spinning in a slow circle until one of them connected. Crackling echoed into the night for a few seconds until the assassin summoned a transparent but glowing egg-shaped magical shield. The crackling stopped, but the black energy connected with her guard until the magic vibrated, almost as if it absorbed the energy of the spell.
I stopped directing the magic, unwilling to feed her reserves. I didn't know what the hell kinds of spells these were, but logically, a shield to absorb magic likely couldn't combat physical force. Death energy still swirled above both my palms, but only to make my foe think I would use magic so she'd be vulnerable to a physical hit. The assassin unleashed another flurry of attacks on my shield, and I took that moment to strike.
I kicked her gut so hard my boot likely left an impression, and she flew back until her invisible body cracked through the lowest branches of a fir tree. The glimmering of metal pulled my attention to the ground where a black dagger clattered over debris after loosing from her grasp. I reached down on the way to her to grab it.
The broken branches of the fir trembled as the invisible assassin used them to help her stand. I slashed at her with her own weapon, using the glowing magic of her shield as a guide for her location. She returned the gesture with her remaining dagger; given her familiarity with the weapon, she was better at it.
Shing! Shing!
The protective life magic surrounding me broke. I lifted my left arm defensively to guard my throat and heart. A sharp prick of pain jabbed the knob of my ulna bone in a stab meant for my jugular. I dropped the assassin's dagger from my right hand so I could grab her arm now that I knew where it was.
My hand felt slick leather armor. I could still see nothing, but I didn't need to. Still holding her forearm with my right hand, I grazed up her arm with my left, finding her elbow and then her bicep. She struggled in my grasp, but I overpowered her.
With her elbow bent between my hands, I snapped the limb backwards. The creaking protests of leather armor preceded a crack of bone. The assassin inhaled sharply with pain, and her second dagger dropped. When it hit the forest floor it became visible, no longer affected by her magic.
As disorienting as it was fighting an invisible assassin, I found one way to use it to my advantage. While staring through her, I noticed the sharp lower branches of a dying fir tree. One in particular looked sturdy enough to hold her weight.
The assassin released a bright emerald spell at me, but it hit my ward and fizzled out. With one hand on her throat in a stranglehold and the other on her waist, I forced her back into the tree.
A yelp echoed out. Some branches broke with weakness as she hit them, but the sturdiest one stabbed her in the back. Blood drizzled over the debris below, the only visible clue as to my success. Still holding her with both hands, I shoved forward with all my might, further impaling her. Though she stayed invisible, the sharpened point of the branch inside her darkened with blood.
I heard a moist cough. I finally released her body just to back up and kick her. Only when her blood dripped off the tip of the branch did I relent the force since that meant it fully impaled her. She couldn't escape.
“Are you Alderi?” I demanded.
“Wait a few minutes and find out,” she retorted, her voice wheezy and trembling with trauma.
“Dispel your illusion and I'll give you a quick and painless death.”
A sarcastic laugh. “Too late for that, isn't it?”
“I could leave you to bleed out on this tree to serve as a warning to others. Considering what I smell, that would be quite the humiliation for you.”
“Fuck you,” she wheezed. The argument worked, however; she dispelled her invisibility.
Hanging on the tree before me was an Alderi woman. The Alderi were sometimes casually referred to as dark elves, but I'd never expected them to be this dark. She was quite short, only standing midway between five feet and six, and she wore black leather armor with a sheen to it which suggested someone made it from the hide of an unfamiliar underground creature. Somehow, her skin seemed almost as dark, a mixture of deep purple and charcoal gray. Her eyes were completely black with no discernible separation of iris and sclera. If it weren't for the moonlight, the shadows would claim her as their own.
“You were hired,” I surmised.
“No shit,” she spat back. Blood dribbled down her chin from internal trauma, and a wheeze joined her next inhale.
“By who? Sirius?”
“I don't know who,” the assassin retorted. “We aren't told who. I'm in this for the gold, not the politics.”
“How'd you find me?”
“Are you serious?” She laughed sarcastically before wincing when it hurt. “This forest is crawling with mercenaries. Nearly all of them are after you. Finding you was the easy part. Even the orcs are searching for you.”
“Why are orcs after me?”
“I don't fucking know,” she rambled. “You got their attention, somehow. Maybe you pissed them off by collecting bodies since you're taking away their main source of food.”
I raised an eyebrow. I hadn't known the orcs were cannibals. “So that's how you knew I was the right target,” I deduced. “You knew about my necromancy and witnessed my fight today.”
“No,” the Alderi shook her head. “I didn't know about your necromancy until I witnessed the fight today. That's why I waited to try to kill you where your corpses couldn't help you. All I knew was that you're half-Icilic. None of us could find you in Sera for the past few years. We put two and two together once we found one of your old warrants. Followed the paper trail, and here you are, one of Chairel's most-wanted criminals. I don't get paid enough for this shit.” She spit to the side when blood overflowed her tongue. “That's all I know. You promised me a painless death. Follow through before the numbness beats you to it.”
“Thank you for your information,” I said. Using two leeching spells to double their effect, I siphoned the life force f
rom her chest. It took only seconds for her dying body to give up its fight.
No wonder I'd had no assassins after me yet. Sirius hadn't hired them. The racist bastards in Glacia had, and their intel was dated given they listed my location as Sera. The assassin hadn't known who paid for the hit, but she hadn't needed to; she correctly stated I was a half-breed. No one had ever discovered the secret of my impure Icilic bloodline outside of Thornwell. I'd never told Kai, and Sirius's warrants only listed me as human.
I raised the assassin from the dead and marched back to the cabin while healing my defensive wounds. I didn't bother burying her with the others tonight; I just wanted to sleep.
Mercenaries were after me. Before long, the Seran Army might be as well. Little had I known that the Icilic supremacists had been after me for years. Now that the first assassin found me, I knew others would be close behind.
Who's next? I wondered as I drifted off to sleep. The world was all too happy to prepare its answer.
Twenty-two
31st of New Moon, 414
“Smell blood! Bodies here.”
The wood ceiling of my cabin appeared in my vision as the guttural voice woke me from a late slumber. Expecting a fight, I dragged myself out of bed to pull on my armor. Behind the green drape hanging from the cabin's east-facing window, multiple shadowed forms loomed from the deeper forest.
“Smell blood,” a female croaked, using the same simple dialect. “Smell acid, too. These bodies are old.”
Snatching my cloak from the bedside table, I pulled it on and threw the hood up over my head.
“Makes no difference,” a male replied. “Just a little bitter.”
I grabbed my scythe from under the bed. As it dragged over the floor, the scraping of steel on wood reverberated off the cabin's walls.
“House!” Someone roared it like a directive. The ceramic tea mug wobbled over the counter as the vibrations of a sudden stampede rattled the cabin, and then it tipped off and shattered on the floor.
I summoned protections against melee and magic, and then I tugged the chair out from under the doorknob. The door bashed open, and I barely had time to register the green bulky body just outside before a giant ax blade swung up at me in an uppercut. The immense strength of the hit sent me flying through the tiny house, and my shield broke when I slammed into the fireplace and collapsed in a lump on the floor. The scythe clattered over hardwood in the corner.
As I stood wearily and regenerated my shield, I realized my rising power had caught the attention of an entirely new kind of foe.
Orcs. As skeletons, orcs were among my best minions. When alive they were far more intimidating, for broad bones were wrapped with broader muscles that filled them out to look twice the size. The orc who hit me was so gargantuan that he ducked dramatically to come through the cabin's seven-foot doorway. Greenish-gray flesh stretched over bulging muscles and pronounced veins. Other than worn leather leggings, boots, and a belt to hold loot and his ax, he wore nothing at all, seemingly unconcerned about being injured. Battle scars crisscrossed over his torso, some hiding beneath fields of black hair. He grinned with the anticipation of a good kill, showcasing a mouth full of missing and rotten teeth. Most frighteningly, his nose was shaved down to the bone, only a shadow where cartilage should have been.
I reached out toward his chest. Sizzles and pops echoed off the walls as his life force siphoned to me. He glared down at the funnel with solid black eyes and croaked, “Magic is weak.”
He swung his ax again, but this time I stepped back. The weapon still collided with my shield, but not as hard; it flickered as he pursued me into the back corner.
Fwoosh!
The unmistakable sound of ignition rattled through the cabin, followed by the crackling of fire overhead. The whoops and hollers of bloodthirsty orcs outside came next. A thick heat radiated through the windows and upper vents. Panic cluttered my chest, but there was no room to avoid the orc to leave, and he didn't seem to care that the place was in flames.
Corpa te risa a multipla.
Black magic fogged out over the hardwood. As the energy collected into thin tendrils and slithered out the door to the forest like an army of snakes, a green fist clashed into my shield, shattering it. Before I could regenerate it, the orc grabbed me by the throat and lifted me until my head hit the ceiling with a thunk. Heat filled my head from the sudden pressure. The orc cranked his ax back to cut me in half horizontally. Hanging by my throat and with a prepared shield spell in one hand while stealing his life force with the other, I had one choice to avoid mutilation.
As the ax cut toward my side, I reached out and shielded it. A tiny white guard bubbled over the weapon. When it clashed into my side, it only knocked the breath out of me, for the shield hit me rather than the blade. The orc glared at his weapon, appearing overwhelmingly confused. I took advantage of his hesitation and my higher position to kick him in the genitals.
“Aggh!” He threw me down onto the counter, and my head snapped back against the wood. Stars danced before my vision over a backdrop of rolling smoke that collected in the ceiling. Sounds of battle echoed in the doorway from outside, where corpses heeded my call and swarmed the other orcs. I sent a desperate mental plea for them to aid me as I rolled off the counter to avoid another punch. After hitting the floor with a thud I stood, only for a boot in my back to send me face-first into the door frame. More stars joined the first set, and dizziness settled in.
I refreshed my shield and stumbled out the door, passing three corpses that hobbled to the cabin from my request. As they clashed with the orc in the doorway, I realized I left my scythe in the home. Spinning, I leeched from the orc with both hands as I directed a minion to fetch my weapon. The zombie hobbled into the smoking cabin. Moments later, it reappeared with my scythe in its hand, watching me with empty sockets as I took it.
“Thank you,” I said, and the zombie waddled away.
Three dozen orcs surrounded the cabin, all in conflict with undead soldiers. The orcs were brutal battle veterans and had already defeated many of my minions easily, collapsing skeletons and bursting swollen decomposing flesh with hooked axes and maces with sharp flanges that appeared more like torture devices. The undead already outnumbered them, but I hurried back from the flaming cabin to another mass grave, calling more to my aid.
As an army of nearly one hundred corpses swarmed the orcs, I focused on leeching. I needed as much energy as possible if I wanted to keep the dead rising and protected with shields.
Surprisingly, only four orcs dropped dead from leeching before their life force surged to my head and threw my brain into the orgasmic vat of a high. My eyelids fluttered with the welcome feeling, and a pleasurable shiver worked out from my core to my extremities. The closest orc noticed my sudden trance-like state and turned from my minions to face me. I jerked my head to both sides to work out a few kinks before I ran to face him.
The orc pointed at me and announced, “You get power from magic? I get power from blood.” He rolled his free hand into a fist and pounded his chest. “Spill my blood.”
If you insist. I held my scythe out to the side as I ran, trying to determine if I could hit his throat. At eight feet tall, he would be hard to decapitate. The orc noticed my glare on his throat. I allowed him to think I'd hit him there as I angled the scythe instead for his unarmored waist.
The orc lifted his weapon to deflect an attack for his throat. I ran past him, using my momentum instead to rip my scythe through his gut just below the lowest right rib, tip facing his spine. I felt the resistance of his inner viscera before the overbearing stench of half-digested food spiced the air. The scythe blade swept through his gut to the other side, ending its arc with globs of maroon marring its silver sheen.
I shook my weapon by its handle, flicking harvested gore to the ground. The orc turned to face me, and I stilled with confusion. I'd severed his colon and likely part of his small intestine. At the very least, he should have doubled over with pain.
Sheets of blood oozed out of the cut, draining down his hip and leg. The metallic stench of it wafted up to the orc's flared nostrils, where it sunk through to his brain. His gaze sharpened. Muscles bulged. Fingers clenched. Incisors bared.
A guttural roar shattered through the forest, spittle spraying from greenish lips. Ax in hand, he rampaged toward me with a bloodlust like my leeching high.
Berserker rage.
The orcs were known for them. Rumors stated that such rages boosted their strength and their resistance to bleeding out. The only way to end a berserker rage was for the orc to run out of energy or its foe to die.
And I didn't plan on dying today.
The life shield still bubbled around me, but I didn't trust it as my only defense. As the orc closed in, I dodged his trajectory before reaching out to leech from him as he flew by.
He skidded to a stop just feet away and spun, throwing his ax toward my shield. The move was so quick and unexpected that even with the quicker reflexes of my high, I couldn't totally dodge it. I flinched away, watching the ax scrape along the magical barrier before skidding backwards from the force. I leeched with my left hand and parried his next hit by raising my scythe.
Shing!
Steel skidded along steel as we locked ourselves in a deadly embrace. Just behind the orc, one skeleton and two fleshy zombies hobbled to our fight, eager to aid me. The orc gritted his teeth until his incisors broke open his lip, doubling down on his weapon. I dispelled the death magic so I could focus on doing the same with both hands on my scythe, buying time.
A mercenary corpse was first to defend me, hacking into the orc's torso wound and trying to deepen it. The orc roared and broke our embrace so suddenly I nearly fell into him. As he spun and grabbed the corpse's head with his free hand, I screamed hoarsely with effort and sliced my scythe through the air at his right arm. The curved blade hooked around his inner elbow. The wound sprayed blood even before I jerked my weapon back, splitting tendon and cutting through veins until the orc dropped his ax.
