Book of The Dead

Tyron crouched in the bushes, Yor’s words still running circles through his head.

“It’s important that you clean up your own messes,” she told him, that feral gleam in her eye. “The Court has sent me to watch over you to some extent, to offer advice and of course to accept your request to join our association.”

She grinned then, revealing her fangs and perfectly aligned teeth.

“For that to happen, however, you must be worthy. So far, I am impressed with what you have achieved, but you could be so much more than this. If you depend on me, then should I take that as an acknowledgement that you align with my faction?”

Her tone implied that he already was leaning that way, considering the favours he already owed the vampires. If he wanted her to help fight his battles, then he may as well formalise the arrangement.

He refused.

“Don’t worry. Should you find yourself on the edge of death, I will find you. The offer I make at that time will be far worse than what you would get right now, but I feel that you may accept it anyway.”

In that moment, the flawless seductress fell away and she allowed him to glimpse the beast that dwelled within. She gazed at him like a wolf staring at a hunk of raw meat.

“I-I’ll keep that in mind,” he swallowed, his mouth turned dry.

“Do,” she said, once again the elegant and sophisticated Yor that he knew.

Hidden in the bush, he shivered and pulled his cloak around him once more. It was so easy to forget what she was, sometimes. He was beginning to think she went out of her way to remind him, lest he begin to underestimate her.

She’d already appeared to him when he was on the verge of death once; he didn’t look forward to a repeat.

So he was on his own for this fight. Unless he counted Dove as helpful in any way. He looked down at the skull.

“What?” Dove said, a faint glow in his eyes showing he was alert.

“Just wondering if having you around means I have help or not.”

“How about fuck you? Big bad Necromancer, with your ghosts, and your skulls. How many of your lousy minions would stand up to my star wolf? Huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought. No help. If I’m no help, then set me free this instant.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Tyron chuckled.

“You are going to set me free though, right? We’ve had a number of conversations about this, but I like to check in every now and again.”

“Yes, Dove. I’m going to set you free.”

“Good to know. Now stop procrastinating and go murder these pricks already.”

Tyron rolled his eyes, but the Summoner had a point. He was distracting himself from the task at hand. He still wasn’t comfortable with attacking and killing people, even people like this. He hoped he never would be, if he was honest with himself. With a little luck, once he was done with these bandits, he’d be able to make his way to another rift and battle rift-kin. Those were enemies he was happy to kill.

He could feel them now. After what the Abyss-creature had done, they stood out in the night like sparks shining against a dark background. Be there trees, bushes or walls between them, it was impossible for the bandits to hide from him.

Not far to go now, just a few kilometres. Being cautious, he wouldn’t move until he had a clearer picture of what lay ahead. Thankfully, he no longer had to put himself at risk to gain that type of information.

With a mental command, he ordered his ghosts forward. Filled with resentment, they obeyed, drifting over the surface as near invisible spirits. They felt… stronger now, more tangible, their emotions boiling closer to the surface than they had before.

It was possible they were suppressed in some fashion during the day. Perhaps daylight interfered somehow with the binding? Or was it the other way around, something about nighttime strengthened it?

He shook his head. As much as he’d like to follow that thread, he needed to concentrate. If all went well, he would kill dozens of people before the sun rose.

Such a surreal thought.

He quickly enacted the magick and peered through his minions’ eyes, cycling through the ghosts as they spread out and advanced. Under the moonlight, what he saw through them was even more ethereal and disturbing. The landscape was twisted, covered in purple mist and winds, distorted in strange, unnerving ways. Despite the dizzying feeling and overall unease he felt, it was possible to filter it out and get a reasonable picture of what they were looking at, especially when they got close.

He sucked his breath in through his teeth and slowly curled his hand into a fist.

Damn you, Monty, you prick. Did you know I was coming?

He’d expected to find the bandits living as they had before, repeating the same course of action in the hopes of riding out the storm in a remote location. It would have been horrific, more murder and brutal treatment for the original owners of the land, but as long as he got them all, it would be over.

Instead, they’d done something else. Through the twisted vision of the ghosts, he could see a small village, smoke rising from the chimneys of several buildings and light spilling through doorways and windows as people settled in for the night.

What are they playing at?

Had they taken the people hostage? Or killed them? He didn’t see anyone staked on the street at least. He grit his teeth and ordered his minions closer. He had to know what he was dealing with.

It was difficult for the ghosts to see details, but as they drifted up to windows or slipped through walls into houses, it appeared as if nothing was awry. Families were resting after dinner, or preparing to sleep, performing the multitude of little tasks that needed doing as they wound down their day.

Tyron sent the ghosts to locate the bandits and he found some, sleeping in haylofts or spare beds, chatting and laughing with their hosts. He grit his teeth as the spirits swept through the dozen or so houses that made up the village and the same scene was repeated over and over again.

Those pricks.

They were hiding in plain sight, using the villagers as cover. He could almost imagine the scene, Monty and his crew staggering down the road, exhausted and bloody, begging to be taken in and shown charity. After the break, it would’ve been simple to paint themselves as the survivors of a farmstead that had been overrun.

Most of them were labourers and farmhands, it would be trivial to make use of their skills to ingratiate themselves in this small community, make themselves useful as they waited for the marshals to sweep through.

They’d be caught eventually. Once Annette and the other survivors told their story, these men would eventually be tracked down and put to death. For now, though, they bought themselves time, nestled here amongst their living shield.

“Fucking arseholes,” he sighed as he withdrew his vision.

“You’re way too young for that. Start with the front, get some experience and then try the road less travelled. That’s good advice.”

Tyron was too irritated to even respond to that.

“They’ve swanned into a village and are acting like refugees,” he spat, staring through the dark at the lights that burned in his mind’s eye. “After everything they’ve done? These shitstains….”

“Whew. That’s some brass-balled fuckery right there. If they weren’t bandit scum, I’d almost be impressed.”

“Well what the hell am I supposed to do now? They’ve got dozens of innocent people down there amongst them. This isn’t how I thought it was going to go!”

The former Summoner didn’t seem to think much of it.

“So? You think the villagers are going to jump up to defend these strangers? The moment you roll into town with your bone-patrol, most of them are going to roll under the nearest bed and shit themselves. Hopefully not in that order, for their sake. Your skeletons might be weak as piss, but someone who Awakened as a farmer isn’t exactly shit hot in a fight. Can they plant seeds like a motherfucker? Absolutely. Can they kill anything that doesn’t eat crops? Not so much.”

“But what if they do? I’m not going to kill innocent people, Dove. That’s a line that I refuse to cross!”

“That won’t happen. Like I said, they’re just going to run away.”

“We can’t know that for sure. And what happens if the bandits use them as hostages? Threaten to kill them unless I walk away? What happens then?”

There was silence for a moment as the skull contemplated what the young mage was saying. Purple light flickered and danced in Dove’s hollow eyes.

“Look, kid,” he said finally, “there’s a lot that could happen here. There’s a world where you and I walk away from here, right now. Well, you walk… never mind that. We leave, and then these bandits never hurt another soul, then they get arrested, put to death, and it’s all over. No fuss, no muss. That’s possible. How likely do you think that is?”

“Not very,” Tyron said.

“Of course it’s not fucking likely. At the very least, they’ll fight the marshals when they come to make arrests. There’s another possibility, though. You go down there tonight, murder all of them, and no villagers are harmed in the process. None of them escape, and you collect Monty’s soul and stuff it into a hollow bone for lonely men to stick their dicks in. How likely is that?”

Tyron slumped.

“Again, not very,” he said.

“So we end up with a middle ground. If you go down there, things are going to get fucked up. The villagers will see you, run from you, maybe try and attack you. Monty may even try to rally them to his defence, screaming about the evil mage who’s come to kill them all. So fucking what? Do you remember why we’re here?”

The Necromancer swallowed and nodded, reluctantly.

“I need levels,” he said.

It sounded so selfish when he said it out loud. Was it really alright for him to be doing this for such a reason?

“Exactly. There’s no point backing out now when you’ve already come this far. There’s thirty-odd sacks of progression down there, so sharpen up a stick and go poke ‘em full of holes. Spook the villagers off as best you can, grab what we can and run for it.”

The empty sockets of the skull glowed brighter.

“Listen, kid, every high ranked Slayer is a selfish piece of shit when you get down to it. If you’ll forgive me, your parents are exhibit A right down to fucking Z.”

Tyron nodded. There was no denying that.

“I get that you don’t want to act solely in your own interests, that’s great, but if you aren’t prepared to take this step, then what are you going to do? Give up?”

What were his options? Rifts existed to the east and south, but it would be more than difficult to get out there, impossible even. He needed to be stronger, to improve his abilities and acquire better ones. As he was right now, he’d be annihilated by the first Slayer he came across.

If he walked away from this village out of fear of killing the locals, and then came back a week later to find the men on stakes and the women in cages, what would he say to himself then?

No choices. There’s never any choices.

“I’ll do it,” he said, “but I refuse to kill any innocents. If they fight, I’ll just have to take it as best I can.”

“I think that’s the best decision,” Dove agreed. “You’ll want to have an exit plan in place, though. The moment we leave, they’ll be screaming to the law at the top of their lungs. You’ll be even more wanted than you are right now with thirty murders to your name.”

“Thanks, Dove,” Tyron said, sarcasm dripping from each word. “I appreciate the warning.”

It sounded bad, but in reality, he was already being hunted, so not much would change. He would need to clear out of the area and hunker down somewhere for a while, since they’d swarm over this village once the word got out.

“Alright then. Did you want to come along or should I leave you behind?”

“Fuck that,” Dove said. “I wanna see that fat fucker Monty beg. If I had my spells, I’d feed him to my star wolf, and when he came out the other end, I’d banish the shit to the Abyss. No way I’m missing his death.”

Tyron paused.

“Do Astral beings shit?” he asked, curious.

“What? No, of course not. That shouldn’t get in the way of a good diatribe, though. Stop worrying about the fucking details!”

“I just wanted to know.”

“You’re too inquisitive, that’s your damn problem. Always have to know everything.”

“That’s probably why I achieved two magick-related Mysteries before I ranked up.”

“... Nobody likes a showoff, you big-headed bastard. You fucking…”

“What’s that? Didn’t hear you at the end there.”

“Fuck you, Tyron. By the tits, you piss me off sometimes.”

“Love you too. Let’s go.”

With a silent command, he directed his skeletons forwards. The sleepy village sat quiet in the dark as the Necromancer and his skeletal minions surrounded them. Blades bare,