Book of The Dead

He was drawing ever closer, Tyron could feel him. In the back of his mind, he had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, that the other man would stay out of the battle, and, for some time it had appeared as though that might be the case.

An unmistakable presence, like a drawn blade held against his neck, inching its way closer with each passing moment, there could be no doubt that the platinum ranked Soldier was going to fight. Gritting his teeth, Tyron continued to burn the flood of vitality streaming into him, replenishing his magick.

He was going to need everything he could get.

“He’s coming,” he said shortly to Filetta, taking a brief moment between spells.

“Shit,” she swore, pulling out her twin knives and peering toward the battle. She was too short to see over the skeletons, so gave up after a brief moment. Scowling, she turned back to Tyron. “How far?”

“I don’t see him clearly yet. Wait. Now I do. A hundred metres.”

“Fucking hell.”

A hundred metres to a platinum ranked swordsman may as well have been nothing at all. That blade at his neck was starting to feel very sharp indeed.

Tyron couldn’t help but think back to his father, Magnin, and the things he had been capable of in life. From a hundred metres away, he could have sliced through a single leaf in the heart of a tree’s foliage. From a hundred metres away, he could unleash a lunge powerful enough to split steel.

Sharpening his focus, Tyron abandoned some of his responsibilities, pushing them onto his subordinates so he could concentrate fully on the here and the now. He couldn’t afford any mistakes, not against a foe of this calibre.In a fight between a swordsman and a mage, it was obvious who was going to win. One was simply better equipped to deal with the other. But Tyron was no ordinary mage, and he was far from alone.

Even as he braced for a strike to come his away at any moment, none materialised. In the distance, his enemy continued to slowly push his way forward, making his way to the front, shouldering aside the Soldiers in his path.

No desperate lunge, no flashing strikes, only a patient advance, even as others died around him. Why?

It was from the perspective of others that he got his answer. Right behind the swordsman, a small woman, flinching and shying away from every touch, eyes squeezed shut and hands on the swordsman’s back. He was protecting her.

Something didn’t make sense here, yet Tyron didn’t have time to figure it out. He was on the verge of his greatest triumph, and now this pair threatened to snatch it away from him. It couldn’t be allowed to happen.

Summoning his magick, Tyron spoke the Words of Power, conjuring a storm of power that swirled around him as he unleashed wave after wave of offensive spells. A blizzard of bone and darkness that fell on the enemy in a deluge so thick the Necromancer couldn’t even see through it.

As he worked, he summoned his most powerful undead to his side, gathering a host of demi-liches and wights to defend him. Concentrating his power in this way would weaken his hold on the battle, but that was fine, he was winning there anyway. As long as this single man was brought down, it would be worth it.

Despite the outpouring of magick, he could still feel that presence getting closer, the blade pressing tighter and tighter into his throat. Even the mantle began to respond, rising around him as if to ward off the threat posed by the swordsman.

Tyron felt the very second he reached the frontline. The first rank of skeletons simply… ceased, cut down in an instant by a single sword strike so quick it may as well have been instantaneous. Nothing was able to stop it, not the shields, the armour, or even the dense bones of the skeletons themselves.

Just like that, the man continued to walk forwards.

Behind him, the Soldiers surged, as if seized by a desperate hope. A moment ago, they had been languishing in the grip of despair, crashing against the unyielding horde while their life was sapped away from within. Now, all of a sudden, they were renewed.

Furious, Tyron snapped out orders at the speed of thought. His wights responded, taking command of the battle, shifting the lines, and suddenly everything was in flux. If the Golden Legion were going to extend in the centre, then he would respond by rolling up the flanks and cutting them off. Once this offensive stalled, it would become a massacre, with the Soldiers surrounded on all sides by undead.

The only hope for the Golden Legion now was if they cut him down right here, right now.

From deep into the battle line, the wyvern knocked back its direct opponents to gain space before beating its enormous wings. After the first few ponderous repetitions, it gained speed, and height, lifting into the air and snarling down at the Soldiers who fell back before it. Soon, it was up above the fray, circling, waiting for Tyron’s order to strike.

Another moment passed, and the platinum ranked swordsman drew closer yet again. His blade was always in motion, slicing through spells, cutting down skeletons, even lashing out to disperse the ghosts Tyron tried to sneak down on him from above.

Not on Magnin’s level, not nearly, but powerful. Worryingly so.

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The blade was coming, he could feel it.

***

Plunging into the miasma was like being enveloped by the arms of death itself. Sight and sound faded, leaving Merigold feeling cut off from the world. Without the reassuring presence of the Honoured Stennis by her side, she doubted she would have had the courage to take a single step forward.

Yet she did. One foot in front of the other, she continued to move deeper into the black cloud. Every time she did, the tiniest pressure was placed on Stennis’s back, and he would match her, step for step.

Too terrified to open her eyes, Merigold could do nothing but hope and pray to her ancestor Hamar that Stennis would be able to save them both. If she stopped to let herself think about it, she knew she would only lose her nerve, so she didn’t. Instead, Merigold concentrated on taking one step after another. Even if they were little more than a tiny shuffle forward, she kept moving.

She genuinely couldn’t say for how long this went on. To her, it felt like hours, yet, eventually, she went to take a step forward, but found Honoured Stennis didn’t move with her.

Shocked, she dared to open her eyes and look, only to squeak in fright when she saw the undead arrayed about them. They were surrounded on three sides with heavily armed and armoured skeletons, whose hollow sockets burned with unholy fire.

Above them all, the Necromancer stood, barely visible at the edge of the darkness atop a platform made of bone.

Clad in dreadful armour with a cloak of spirits rolling off his shoulders, he beheld the two of them impassively from behind his helmet.

Then he raised his hands.

“You must stay safe,” Stennis muttered, then disappeared.

***

It wasn’t possible to react in time. One moment, the man was standing a dozen metres away, the next he was right in front of Tyron, sword lancing towards him.

Yet Tyron had never expected to be able to dodge or defend.

Pain exploded in his side as the sword slid into his guts, punching through his armour as if it were paper. Grunting, Tyron snapped out several gestures, Words of Power rolling from his lips.

This close to him, the warping effect of his speech was beyond disorienting, even to a platinum rank swordsman. Shocked, his opponent flicked his eyes up to meet Tyron’s for a split second.

Which was all he needed.

Their minds smashed together, then rebounded before Tyron lashed out, firming his grip and pulling them back into the contest. Like a wild animal, he ripped into the other man’s consciousness, trying to tear down his defenses and assail the mind within.

Focused on the mental war, Tyron cried out in shock more than pain as the blade ripped out of his side, causing him to lurch to the side and break eye contact between them. Instantly, the swordsman vanished, leaping away.

“Damn it,” Tyron grunted, forcing himself upright and raising his hands once more.

With his constitution so absurdly high, what might have been a fatal wound to an unawakened human was an inconvenience to him. In addition, he was still receiving a flood of vital energy from the cursed army around him. In less than a minute, he would be whole again.

“Get down!” Filetta roared, shoving him aside, her twin-knives flashing.

She appeared as if leaping out of a shadow, having previously been completely unseen. Steel clashed on noctic bone right where Tyron’s neck had been a moment before as he fell off the back of the platform.

Filetta cursed, one of her blades being ripped from her hand, then turned and leapt back into the darkness. The swordsman spun, preparing to lash out at Tyron again from where he stood more than a dozen metres away.

In response, Tyron let loose the spell he had prepared, a simple bone lance. Except, as he was falling, he didn’t aim it towards the swordsman, instead his hand flashed to the side, and he fired it towards the terrified-looking woman.

Was it just a trick of the light, or did his adversary hesitate?

Another flicker, and the man was gone, reappearing before the lance could strike home and slashed it to ribbons.

Target the woman! Tyron ordered his minions as he landed on his feet. All of you!

Hundreds of skeletal mages turned their attention towards her, lifting their hands at the same time and unleashing a torrent of magick. Hoping this would buy him enough time, Tyron climbed back onto his platform, checking to ensure his staff was still in place.

If the ritual built into the platform was disrupted, his minions would become significantly weaker, perhaps enough to turn the tide of the battle, even at this late hour. Even now the Golden Legion were forcing their way forward, trying to follow in the wake of the platinum swordsman and drawing ever closer to the market square where Tyron stood.

Scowling, he drew up the Mantle of the Imperator, bunching it around his neck as he prepared to cast.

The swordsman had a weakness, that was all he needed.

***

Merigold cried out and pressed her hands into her ears and crouched, desperate to hide from the endless barrage of magick that assaulted them. Stennis was like a tornado, moving so quickly he appeared as little more than a blur, his shining blade carving light into the darkness as he sliced and parried and slashed through everything that sought to harm her.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.

He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her, wouldn’t be risking his own life to save hers if she hadn’t forced him to. This was all her fault.

Everything was her fault.

“No, I’m sorry,” she heard him say.

“What?” she mumbled, not sure if she’d imagined it.

Two hands wrapped around her waist, causing her to squawk in surprise. With shocking tenderness, Honoured Stennis lifted her from the ground, adjusted his grip, then spun.

The world became a blur as he turned once, spinning her around to build up momentum.

Once was all he needed.

Before she understood just what was happening, Merigold was in the air, sailing over the ranks of the Golden Legion, screaming all the way.

“Stenniiiiiiiiissss!”

***

Tyron blinked.

“I didn’t expect that,” he muttered.

“Or this,” a voice said from before the platform.

On instinct, Tyron snapped out spells.

A column of bone erupted from the ground.

It was slashed to pieces before it had even fully formed.

A hand of darkness sprung forth.

It was cut to ribbons.

A single, shining slash descended from above. Tyron could see it, as pure as a raindrop and as inevitable as winter, falling down towards him.

The Mantle of the Imperator moved to protect him, the spirits lashed within reaching for the blade as Tyron moved on instinct. All around him, a dozen wights and demi-liches reached out to save their master, yet they wouldn’t be fast enough.

Bringing his hand around, Tyron twisted his body as he used his forearm to deflect the blow. Rather than cut him in half, it sliced down past his nose and cut straight through his chest armour before sinking into the platform right before his feet.

Tyron allowed himself a slight smile as he raised his hands, eyes turning to meet those of the swordsman right in front of him.

Pain exploded in his chest, causing him to stagger. That damned sword… had cut through the enchantments pumping his heart.

“Damn… it,” he gasped as the blood slowed within his veins.

Was he just unlucky, or had the swordsman sensed the magick inscribed on his chest? Regardless, the balance had tipped precipitously. Luckily, Tyron liked to plan ahead.

Conduits blazed with power, then faded as the Necromancer collapsed to his knees and fell to the side.