by Rosie Scott
Fuck fate, I decided, my vision darkening to red as I gave into rage. Its influence on me ends today. This day ends in blood.
Twenty-six
Kenady swept his arms out to the sides dramatically as his men surrounded my fort. “Looks like we've both been promoted since we saw each other last, necromancer!”
“I worked for this!” I shouted down at him, building two necromantic spells in my hands. “What the hell did you do to deserve a promotion to general?”
“I defeated you!” Kenady screamed, his voice tinged with rage. The soldiers surrounding him seemed taken aback by their general's personal vendetta and sudden outburst, but they didn't question it.
“You abandoned your men and ran like a coward!” I released the black magic. A dark fog rose on the watchtower floor before splitting off into tendrils. As the cirri darted through the air to the corpses in the nearest caches on either side of the palisade, the soldiers reacted and prepared for battle.
“Burn it!” Kenady ordered, his voice so hoarse with hostility it caught. “The whole fucking place! Burn it down!”
Whoosh!
Seemingly at once, the entire northern palisade burst into flames as multiple fire mages lit the vulnerable wood from its base. Intense heat radiated from the wall as I hurried down from the tower, recasting the death spell from both hands repeatedly as I went. As the first bout of dead rose on the exterior of the flaming wall, hundreds more magical recruiters slithered across the camp and sunk into the dirt. Only when I cast the spell again and no tendrils formed did I stop, for that meant all my corpses answered the call.
The earth quaked. Dirt sprayed upward in mini explosions across the fort as bodies pulled themselves out of a lazy slumber. Screams and shouts echoed from outside the wall as the army came to contend with the dead. More flames sprouted over the wall as fire mages spread the element around the barrier. Perhaps Kenady found inspiration in Valerius's historical defeat and wanted to trap me until I burned alive.
I stalked toward the gate, summoning shields and wards for my minions like they were the only spells I knew. The corpses hissed and spat with excitement for battle as they glared at the inside palisade like they could see their foes through it. I tugged the door bar out of place and generated protections for myself. Finally, I unsnapped the sheath from my scythe and hung it on my belt before gripping the readied weapon in a hand.
I kicked the gate open, and it slammed into a fire mage on its outward trek as he prepared to light it on fire. The man tumbled to the ground on his hands and knees. A gasp of fear escaped his lips when he saw my shadow rise above his own in the flickering light of the nearby fire. He tried to stand, but I stomped my left boot in his lower back, forcing him back down. With a grunt, I ripped my scythe toward his raised neck like I chopped wood. Though I had no leeching high, the curved blade sliced clean through his throat, vibrating with resistance only when cracking through the spine. Blood spurted out of the decapitation like a fountain, and his head fell to the forest floor. Pure crazed rage would clearly be a benefit to both me and Kenady today.
Another fire mage prepared a spell farther down the wall, but as my minions flooded northwest into the forest, she was the first foe to target. The mage lit a few corpses on fire before crumpling to the ground from a blade to the heart. I raised the mages from the dead as I followed the charge of my corpses to the northwest, my eyes biased for the armor of a general.
“Aggh!” The scream of adrenaline preceded a harsh crackling not too unlike that of a leeching funnel. I didn't have to search hard to find the culprit. An air mage spread her arms toward my onslaught of corpses, releasing bursts of flashy chain lightning into the crowd. Veins of white-hot blue and purple electricity darted from her fingertips, seeking out the moisture of blood and decomposition fluids and convincing my minions to fall into violent seizures. Dozens of corpses fell at her boots, smoking from degrading eyelids. For a few moments, she and I played a game of back-and-forth. She'd overwhelm the corpses with electricity just for me to call them to attention once again. Only when other Seran soldiers joined her in the frontlines did the mage cease her spell, for its spreading nature risked friendly fire.
BOOM!
The world blinked white and forced stars in my vision as the air mage summoned lightning from the sky. I stumbled back, my ward sizzling with a warning it would die soon. I refreshed it and sent my minions to the air mage from our distance, for her persistence annoyed me and I couldn't reach her from here. They swarmed her, finally besting her with a sword in the spine.
Over the heads of sparring living and dead, I glimpsed a flash of black. Kenady protected his men with life magic while brutalizing corpses with his flail. I put my scythe on my belt and leeched lives with both hands as I worked my way through soldiers to him. Some warriors almost impressed me with the challenge they posed and the acts of valor they committed to try to best me, but I dispatched of them carelessly. None of them mattered. They were merely hurdles to hop over. I needed to enact vengeance on the man whose hatred and wrongdoings had haunted me for six years of exile.
The Seran soldiers were challenging foes. Their armor was of a higher quality than most mercenaries and didn't split so easily. I relied on magic to fell them, using my scythe only as a backup. The black magic could slip through the tiniest vulnerabilities like gaps beneath helmets or simple tears in leather and pull lives from fleshy husks. Sometimes men would die unblemished after dying painlessly through leeching, and then they would make fantastic minions, for the same high-quality armor and weapons were now on my side.
At one point, I met Kenady's cold gray eyes from over the battle between us and thought, It is inevitable. I hoped the words came through my glare and settled into his mind. Necromancy was the only magic to grow in strength over time; with every minute that passed, more life force collected in my veins and more Serans rose from the dead.
Perhaps Kenady did hear my thoughts, for his orders to his men grew more desperate and creative. By Kenady's request, an earth and water dual caster siphoned the last of the Red Moon breeze into a challenging combination spell of mud. The thick sludge arced over my horde like a heavy stream of sewage, and dozens of my minions crumpled under its weight. Though I avoided the muck by circling around the frontlines, my corpses were far less intelligent. A few hobbled into the mud willingly, their focus on the enemies on the other side. Mud latched on to decomposing bare feet and worn boots, rendering my minions still. As I redirected the rest of the horde around the obstruction, I sent death magic through the area. Though the corpses suddenly jerked awake with new life, they were still stuck. The blanket of mud expanded and trembled as the undead writhed in its clutches, but the black magic struggled to overcome its heavy grasp.
The mud obstruction was Kenady's greatest strategy against me, for it pulled many of my minions out of the fight entirely. Unfortunately for him, I'd already made up those numbers lost with his own men. And now that his mages depleted most of the breeze from the air, environmental energy reserves were low.
Kenady stood amid the clearing just north of my flaming camp, his chest heaving with adrenaline and eyes searching for a saving grace. Blood dripped from the points of his flail, extra thick with the chill of the undead. During the battle he'd pulled on a protective helmet that showed little other than his cold eyes and a few gritted teeth. Since it was mid-Red Moon, my twenty-first birthday was just weeks away. That would have made Kenady twenty-one or twenty-two given my late start in Sera. As a child, Kenady's eyes glimmered not only with cruelty but also with a sadistic desire to hurt others. He hadn't just taunted and humiliated and ridiculed; he'd enjoyed it. He'd likely gone out of his way to catch me doing something wrong in Sera, if only to make my life a living hell.
As an adult, little had changed. Kenady suffered no consequences to his actions, which angered me almost as much as all of his wrongdoings against me. I recognized this man by looking into his eyes because he never had to change. Contrarily, I barely rec
ognized myself whenever I glimpsed my reflection. The humble kid I'd been was dead. Kenady had ruthlessly murdered him with cruelty, and he was never coming back. By treating me with the utmost disdain, Kenady forced me to metamorphose until I resembled him. The tormented devolved into a tormentor.
I hated him for that most of all.
“You're looking a little pale, Cerin,” Kenady breathed, flicking his flail to clear it of some blood. It was only further proof that he refused to grow; his insults were still juvenile and petty. “Have you been eating?”
As Kenady's men clashed with my minions all around us, I strode toward him like a hunter, stepping over elemental debris and fallen weapons. An intense leeching high roared through my veins. As I grabbed my scythe from my belt, Kenady lashed out a hand, sending a spell toward the ground at my boots.
I quickly sidestepped. A pillar of rock jolted through the soil just where I'd been. I didn't taunt Kenady for missing me. I didn't need to. His face set with a look of irritation that was its own reward.
I raised the scythe over my right shoulder as I neared him, wasting no time in throwing every bit of strength and rage into its swing. Kenady scrambled back, deciding to let his magical guard take the hit.
Shing!
The white magic dulled and flickered. Kenady stumbled back a few more steps from the pressure of the hit. A flash of confused fear lit up his eyes as he realized just how strong I was. It reminded me that I'd never fought him while under the influence of a high.
“Fucking hell,” Kenady breathed, quickly regenerating his guard.
“That's it?” I provoked him, lashing out a leg to kick his shield. It dulled just a bit. “A curse? Where are your taunts? Or did you run out of them when you ran from me like a bitch years ago?”
“Fuck you,” Kenady hissed, swinging his flail with sudden rage. It clashed into my shield, but the magic stayed strong. Further enraged by this, Kenady hacked at my guard with a vengeance, whittling down its strength. “I begged Sirius to put me in charge of this army so I could kill you like the scum you are.”
“Bullshit,” I retorted, refreshing my guard. “Sirius gave you this mission to prove yourself since you failed so badly the last time. Did you really think giving him a ring on a chain would be the proof he needed?”
A flash of self-reflection and anger crossed his eyes. It appeared I'd correctly called out his failures. “Sirius didn't end up with the ring,” Kenady rambled. “I sold the fuckin' thing. Might as well have given it away. It was worth nothing. You said your parents gave it to you?” He hesitated just to spit. Hot saliva sprayed over the lower half of my face, tickling my jawline as it rolled toward the embrace of gravity. “Then they didn't love you, either.”
Shing!
My scythe broke through Kenady's shield, the curved blade clashing into the armor just above his hip. The leather split but didn't break through. I kicked him in the gut to keep him still as I tugged my weapon toward me, trying to work it through the armor. The leather's resistance softened as the blade met the flesh beneath. Blood seeped out of the break. Because I held him still to gut him, my leg was outside of my protective guard.
Wind whistled through the chain links of Kenady's flail as he threw the weapon at my leg. I had two choices: risk my leg to try to gut him, or retreat to save my leg. With my scythe drawing Kenady's blood, I decided I would die if it meant taking him with me.
Clink!
The flail clashed into my left knee, just on the underside of my kneecap. Its nails tore new holes in my armor and punctured the soft flesh at the crease of my leg. The pressure echoed sharp pain through my knee and down my shin, and I used the agony as fuel for my next tug on the scythe. Kenady yelped as it tore through more muscle. As recompense, he ripped the flail back. Its nails tore out of new wounds, and a spray of blood and chunks of ripped flesh chased its arc. I barely felt the injury with my high, and Kenady seemed to notice this detachment with another wave of fear.
I pulled my leg back into my shield. Kenady retreated from me as he turned toward the rest of the battle and shouted, “Men! I need aid!”
Mentally, I willed some corpses back to me. Verbally, I said nothing. I limped in pursuit of Kenady, my hands still on my scythe as it remained stuck in his wound. I wiggled the weapon, burying it deeper in his side as he gasped in pain. When he heaved his flail back, I abruptly stopped and tore the scythe toward me, slicing the entire blade through the wound to retrieve it.
A desperate wail escaped Kenady's lips unintentionally from intense pain as the cut spurted blood and leaked digestive fluids. Hearing such weakness in the same voice that had always been nothing but self-assured and cruel worked me into a crazed fervor. I prepared the scythe for another violent swing, so focused on ending Kenady that I didn't notice his call for aid had worked.
Crrk! Crrk! Crrk!
A blur of whitish-blue flew through my peripheral vision, and with the shrill echo of ice against metal, my scythe flipped out of my grasp. I spun to face my new pursuers just to see two more ice shards shatter into pieces against my ward. Once the ice cubes fell out my vision, soldiers came into view. Minions that answered my earlier call tailed them. The battlefield behind them all was a mess of body parts and blood that glowed orange by the firelight of the burning fort; the palisade was little more than heaps of charred and fallen wood. Some of Kenady's soldiers had got inside the camp and set most of the tents and supplies on fire.
Only a few dozen soldiers were left, but my corpses also dwindled. I set hundreds of tendrils free, not bothering to repeat the spell to reach all the dead in the vicinity. It wasn't necessary. We would swarm them nonetheless.
It is inevitable. The familiar words would have brought a smile to my lips if I weren't so frustrated with being distracted from finally killing Kenady.
My corpse reinforcements caught up to Kenady's allies at the same time I retrieved my scythe from a soft blanket of detritus. One soldier decapitated a minion, taking advantage of its weakened husk to fell it in a clean sweep. A legless corpse grabbed the soldier's boot, pulling itself closer just to gnaw at his lower calf. He screeched in pain and kicked the zombie away, only to fall from a different corpse stabbing him through the knee. As he laid on the ground screaming, zombies swarmed him.
“Kenady!” the water mage who protected her general earlier by disarming me shouted, switching to a sword to help her companions fight off the dead. “We need shields!”
“I'm healing!” Kenady protested selfishly from far behind me.
The mage thrust her sword through the center of a zombie's gut before jerking it out to the side, disemboweling it. Maggot-infested intestines spilled from the wound through flaps of skin before it dispelled. Taking advantage of her distracted state, I circled the woman and kicked her in the back of the knee with my good leg.
A pained squeal escaped her lips as she fell forward to her knees. With a hoarse scream of effort, I swung my scythe in an arc meant to decapitate. I misjudged her kneeling height, so the curved blade instead crashed through her mouth. The tip exploded out the back of her skull with such force that the gore it collected on the way through came with, spraying pine needles with blood and broken teeth.
I cracked the scythe out of the side of her head at cheek level, and she fell dead with a loose lower mandible. I somewhat expected to hear words of horror from my foes, but these were Seran soldiers. They were used to such savagery because they dealt it, and they would do the same to me in a heartbeat.
I didn't waste more time on Kenady's reinforcements. As my minions surrounded them, I turned back to my target. Kenady leaned back against a tree, life magic spreading out from his fingertips to the wound over his left hip. He glanced up as he heard me near, and his eyes fell upon the gory scene I left behind.
“Like I told you years ago,” I began, my voice labored with adrenaline, “my face will be the last thing you see before I rid this world of your filth.”
“I'm shaking in my fucking boots,” Kenady spat
back, his voice trembling.
“Yes,” I taunted, gripping the handle of my weapon with both hands and preparing to swing, “yes, you are.”
Shing!
Wood chips rained over brush like confetti at a party of bloodshed as my scythe crashed into the tree when Kenady dodged it. Mocking laughter burst through his lips as he retaliated. His flail shattered through my remaining shield and knocked the air from my chest, though the force wasn't strong enough to break my armor. When I refreshed the magical protection, my senses dulled; my leeching high had depleted. Normally, I took that as a cue to start leeching again to build my energy reserves, but dying from leeching was painless. I wanted to see Kenady bleed.
Kenady backed away from the burning fort like he thought to flee again. I pursued him into the denser forest, still trailing blood from my injured knee. Without a high, the pain was biting as open wounds chafed against armor. Kenady was tiring; rage could no longer fuel him. We broke through each other's life shields at the same time. He had no energy left to refresh his. I had energy but chose not to use it, goading him to make a brutal swing.
As the flail arced toward my face, I lifted my scythe to meet it. The clash of metal shattered through the air. Just as I'd anticipated, the head of his flail flipped around the scythe's sideways blade at the mercy of its chain. Panic flashed through Kenady's cold gray eyes as he tried to tug his weapon free.
I jerked the scythe back, pulling the flail with. Kenady let go of it, unwilling to pop his elbow out of socket like he'd done with me years ago.
“That's the difference between you and me,” I announced, unraveling the flail from its grip on my scythe. “Because of everything I've gone through after you snitched and forced me to flee that gods-forsaken university, I've grown. I've had to survive and adapt. You've stayed the exact same. And because of that, you're predictable.”
Kenady stumbled backwards and stammered, “Do you have any idea what they'll do to you if you kill me? Do you know how well they regard my family in Sera?”
