Awakening: (The Necromancer's Legacy Book 1)

by Henry Andrews

  Awakening

  The Necromancer’s Legacy 1

  Henry Andrews

  Awakening (The Necromancer’s Legacy 1) Copyright © 2021 by Henry Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Or both. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 1

  "I warned you, Aurora. Strength is not everything. Now, take a deep breath. You must know when to pull. Just pointless strength will not get you anywhere," the old man said, his bright blue eyes following the girl to the edge of the boat.

  The boat was rolling. The girl's fingers swelled as she closed them tighter around the fishing rod. She could barely keep her arms standing still and sweat dripped down her forehead. The man's hoarse voice had scared away the black-feathered and white-beaked birds, which had been flapping their wings beside the boat's head for a while. As soon as they took off, he straightened out the straw clothes that had been splashed by the water and kept his gaze on the child, sighing.

  "I know, Bardolph. I know, but this is a big one," she said.

  "Aurora, you always say that" the man told her and chuckled, "Do you need help?

  "No, never. I will do it alone. I have been training to get stronger. I'll be the strongest one in town. Someday, I will be like those legendary cultivators you always tell me about," Aurora replied, ginger hair fluttering over her shoulders.

  "Just focus on this. Don't be silly," Bardolph replied, raising his voice.

  The breeze was gentle. The sun glistened and mirrored its long silver arms across the river. Fish moved in groups, at times leaping before Aurora, almost as if they were making fun of her;

  She, who spent four afternoons a week there, trying her luck. Few were the days when she succeeded in catching something. And, yet, she had never given up.

  "Yes, yes. I’m close. I can feel it," Aurora said. The voice was now muffled. It slipped between the gnashing teeth, the few muscles she had almost tearing the seams of her old clothes. They used to belong to old Bardolph, her adoptive father, and had then passed to her less than a year ago.

  As usual, Aurora felt an odd sensation scattering throughout her body. Fearing what her friends or parents would think or say, she had never told anyone. She dismissed it, convincing herself that it was just her bones aching as her swollen fingers slipped down the wooden reed, the already loose splinters scraping her skin.

  The fish pulled the hook, and Aurora pulled it with all the strength she had, screaming into nothingness, already with one of her legs on top of the wooden structure. Bardolph remained seated, slicing an apple, using his favorite knife: light brown handle and a sharp curved blade, the scratches on the metal reminiscent of a centennial trunk.

  The fish flew over her body before finally landing on the boat floor. It was flailing, trying to get back in the water, life being sucked out of it. Aurora watched it for a few seconds before picking it up and throwing it back into the water. She couldn’t stand still while the fish shivered, closer to dying each passing second.

  Bardolph raised his right eyebrow.

  "I should not have done that, right?" Aurora asked, avoiding looking at Bardolph.

  "Don't you tell me... it was our dinner," the old man replied, "You're lucky I'd already caught a few," He glanced at the bucket whose bottom was already impossible to see, covered by the gray scales of a dozen fish.

  "So, it didn't make any difference, right?" Aurora asked him, her face drenched in sweat, yet never losing her smile.

  "It does, but it doesn't matter either. At least you want to protect them... I mean, forget it," Bardolph replied.

  "What were you going to say?" Aurora asked him, as she sat down.

  "Nothing. It does not matter now. We'd better get back. I still have some things to do. Tomorrow morning you will work in the cornrow fields and we’ll fish in the afternoon.”

  "The usual then," Aurora said, looking up at the crystal-clear sky. The girl yawned and put her palm on her nape, "Someday I'm going to get out of here,"

  "I love how ambitious you are, but don’t forget to keep your feet on the ground. You could become an important person, very rich even".

  "And I will. And then I will build a huge house for you. You deserve it after all,"

  "Don't be silly, Aurora. I haven't done anything I didn’t want to do and I’m happy with how things turned out," Bardolph replied.

  They approached the small port beside the river, which was just a narrow wooden bridge leading them to one of the green fields between the unpaved road.

  "You could have chosen not to stay with me when I was still a child. But you did, and you always took care of me. Why wouldn't I want to repay you?" Aurora asked him.

  "I really hope that being such a kindhearted person won’t make things harder for you,” Bardolph replied, just as they were docking.

  "Sometimes, I don’t know if you’re talking to me or yourself,”

  "Or you're just not old enough to understand," the man replied and pushed her forward, "She's already waiting for us as usual," he stared at a slender figure that waved at them from the top of the hill.

  "I’ll have to clean my room and do my laundry," Aurora said, her brown eyes made amber under the sunlight, "If I finish early, I can still go to my friends’ house. Let's go!"

  "I don't know how you still have so much energy," Bardolph replied, tucking his clothes in, and rubbing his furrowed right eyebrow. It was a little more arched than the left and hid a brownish sign that the man had near his eyelid.

  "I am young. You on the other hand…" Aurora said and grinned, unveiling a seamless smile.

  Bardolph kept his lips closed and tried to look serious but ended up laughing too. Birds flew across the village, chirping, and landing on wooden rooftops. Aurora glided her hands along the sunflowers and camellias found in the gardens that proceeded the bridge. Apart from a few small stairs, everything else was yellow and green until her sight was no longer able to follow. She inhaled the fresh air and took a deep breath.

  Luna, Aurora's adoptive mother, waved, although they weren’t even halfway yet.

  And, when the young girl arrived, Bardolph was still meters away.

  "Hello, sweetheart. You look tired," she said, her fragile voice nearly like a whisper.

  "Not really. I'm fine. I have to go wash my clothes, don't I?"

  "Yes. But you don't have to go now. You can do it later.
You know the days are longer now."

  "The sooner I do it, the better, right? Besides, I like helping you. You should be resting, not working. You’ve worked enough already."

  "Aurora, I'm not that weak. Someone has to clean the house and take care of the plants while you're working in the fields," she said, the light green eyes fading. As she lifted her arms to wave to Bardolph, who was approaching almost out of breath, her parched skin swung to both sides as the wind waved.

  "Finally," Bardolph said, "I'm way too old for this. This is only good for young people like you," he said, and pointed at Aurora.

  "So, you admit you're a little old," Aurora said, winking at him.

  "Maybe just a little bit, okay. Go do what you have to do," he told her and smiled at the girl.

  Aurora nodded.

  She turned and, having only taken a little more than 10 steps, stopped as she heard a stern, pain-laden scream, the moment crashing around her.

  She didn't move right away. Her heart raced quicker and her head, her rational side at play, urged her to keep the gaze on the wheat fields. And, even then, something within whispered in her ear that it was about time to handle the truth about who she really was.

  And another scream followed, and another and a sequence of them, a tidal wave racing across the city.

  "Aurora! Aurora!" She heard.

  And, no longer being able to ignore the uproar, she turned.

  As soon as she looked back, her heart froze for a few seconds. No, it couldn't be. It had to be a nightmare. The woman who had looked after her for 17 years with her chest dyed red, the metal tip of an arrow carved into it.

  It was as if she were inside a dome which had now been broken and the windows were cracking and shattering, thus revealing to her a truth unknown until then.

  Chapter 2

  "Run Aurora! Run! They're coming!" Bardolph shouted, his wife's blood dyeing his straw shirt and the hay beside him. The arrow was still stuck in her chest. His voice was trembling and being drowned amidst a sea of screams and agonizing pleas.

  The scarlet red flowed down the fields, flooding everything in its path. The horses marched across the once peaceful village and with them brought the stench of death.

  Aurora's friends' bodies were now piled up in the green hills where they used to spend some of the most boring afternoons, watching the sunset and talking about what they would do if they got out of there.

  The blood had stained her best friend's blond hair and ran down the forehead of one of her childhood friends, concealing his greenish eyes. Others had been beheaded alongside the seashore, beside the burning mill, half their heads sinking into the water, their bodies buried in the sand. The waves of white foam washed away the blood, dragging the bodies whose foreheads grazed the rocks until their skin finally tore. The screams of those who had been burned alive did not last long. The soldiers awaited them outside the small, cozy houses with sloping ceilings made of wood and stones and chopped their heads off. The sound of the blades scratching on their skin echoed for brief seconds, replaced by the friction of the heads rolling down the dirt road after being kicked by the Kaji soldiers.

  To Aurora, their orders seemed quite simple; kill, plunder, and burn everything. Their eyes were lifeless. It had been a long time since any of them had even thought of having mercy.

  She was now immersed in the flash of images unfolding before her. One of the Kaji school's soldiers, as shown by the insignia of a red dragon on the lapel of his clothes, pierced the heart of one of the city's elderly women. He carried a wooden spear with a green gooey tip. It was used to atrophy the victim's muscles as it spread throughout the blood - a poison of choice often used when they had time to torture. That was not the case, not that day. Not that it made a difference.

  The soldier twisted the spear on the woman's body when he noticed little Aurora standing there, her face washed in tears, her eyes red and swollen, and her chest heaving.

  "Aurora, please, run!" Bardolph shouted once again, now on his knees, holding his deceased wife's neck.

  His chapped lips were now damp, as was his goatee, which he trimmed every morning, using a scribbled mirror and his knife.

  The skull and the gallows had risen to the earth and now hugged the small port village. Souls abandoned their bodies and headed toward the afterlife that awaited them. The soldiers rejoiced at each death, some of them even competing for the largest number.

  For them, it was just another village, another batch of bodies they had to slaughter. They saw anyone who did not belong to the same school as cattle. That was the teaching and legacy of the Kaji family, passed down from fathers to sons, starting 20 years ago when Quan Lu took over, replacing the late patriarch Luan-Lu and cutting himself off from the remaining four schools.

  The war began shortly after. The Kaji motto was simple, "From fire we will rise, on fire we will burn our foes."

  Aurora tried to move, to run, but she was unable to. Her feet were pinned to the ground, her sandals now of iron. Her throat was dry, and nothing came out no matter how much she tried to scream.

  The soldier made his way to the old man, giggling, his body heaving as saliva slid down his chin. The leather boots stamped the mud. Under the orange luminescence, houses crumbled into ashes and the fields burned, the smoke covering the once bright sky. The soldier looked wider under the color stripes, the shadow fading amidst the gray mist. Brown eyes had acquired an orange color, and splinters and sparks were stuck on his beard, further polluting the air.

  The old man didn't even have time to get up before being pierced by the burning metal tip. The soldier's chi was on fire. He didn't even need to use it against villagers, and yet he couldn't contain himself. A scarlet layer covered his body and stretched out through his sword.

  Aurora had never seen anything like it. Those were only myths and fables she had heard from Bardolph and the other older men on those lilac sunny afternoons when there was not much to do but to ask the heavens for rain on the next day. The girl's bones froze. The soldier's laughter was loud and terrifying. He enjoyed seeing the despair in her eyes.

  "You're next," he said, pointing to her as he drew the flaming sword bathed in chi from the old man's belly. He still laid the sole of his boot on Bardolph’s shoulder and pushed him to the ground. His body bounced twice.

  Bardolph, whose face the years had not been kind to him, his skin wrinkled and scarred by time, murmured meaningless words, his fingers curling and scraping on the earth that now accepted its fate as the man’s deathbed. Blood dripped down his mouth. The red spread around and under him, staining his white clothes and giving a shade of wine to the earth. His eyes lost their color seconds later.

  Aurora could not stand it any longer. All that was too much for her. Abandoned by her parents, she was entrusted to the care of old Bardolph, a trusted foreigner. In that small village, far from the war, they had been living in peace for the past 10 years.

  Within her, anger rose. In her dantian, the center of all vital energy, her sleeping chi woke up and scattered throughout the meridians, corridors in her body. Aurora's thoughts were now black, catastrophic, premonitions of what was ahead. The chi now running through her veins was black, putrid, clogging up her whole body.

  The energy flowed from her fingers to the outside world, clutching her hands, spinning around them; black chi bracelets that fed on the girl's body.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing, child?" the soldier asked as he approached. His voice had dropped a tone and his fingers slipped down the spear.

  Chapter 3

  "What's going on? I've never seen you so scared," a young soldier confronted him, seeing eyes opening wide and his chi quivering in sparks that burst forth throughout the air.

  He did not answer. There was not a single person on the five elemental schools that did not know the meaning of that black chi: the eternal sign of a necromancer, an earthly anomaly. Even mere peasants and those who worked in the mines or as servants knew the crime of even
daring to speak on the possible existence of such abominations.

  It took a few seconds before the soldier broke the silence again, "Look at that girl! How is she doing that?" He asked, even though he knew that nobody would have an answer. His voice trembled and his sword lost the sparkling color that moments before had taken the lives of Bardolph and his wife.

  The darkness was a curse. It was what was shared, between whispers and whistles, beyond the edge of the forest that proceeded the village. Crows rattled on the few rooftops that were not burning and, on the scarecrows, away from the bustle. The girl's eyes changed color. The brown had darkened and swallowed the white until both eyes were no more than two abysses. She was no longer her. She had surrendered herself to the power that was emerging and running throughout her body. A black flame of which she was ignorant of until then.

  After all, the poor girl had grown up thinking that she had not been blessed with the gift of taming the mana so always present in the environment. And yet, now that the thirst for revenge merged with the fear of dying, she could finally feel it. The result was a ridiculous explosion of chi that ravaged the entire path surrounding her. Blasts of wind blew from the horizon and waves of dust crashed into the soldiers' bodies and onto what remained of the houses. Most of the fires had settled down, a few evaporating altogether. The white sky was shut. The girl's chi now mingled with the mana around her and led to pitch dark clouds.

  "This has got to be a joke! No child has this power and all necromancers were burned eighteen years ago. Damn it. Men, get ready! Focus all your chi on the next attack. We can't let her walk away. You heard me," the commander shouted, also surprised and frightened by the sight unfolding in front of him.

  How could such a slender girl release so much power? The control she seemed to have of mana and chi was only comparable to a Level 2 in terms of raw power. Even him, captain of a military unit with more than twenty years of experience, a white beard stained with the blood of hundreds, a tattooed body, each black stroke highlighting a death, was nothing more than a mere Level 3. He could call a portion of the mana that hovered above and fuse it with his weapon, but that was it. He could not use it to improve his human abilities or even have special attacks, nothing that the great cultivators, those who practiced the martial and mystical arts, could achieve. He wasn't even close to reaching them. He didn't have the spiritual roots or the innate talent for that. Even his body and mind daily workout could only take him to a certain point.