Book of The Dead

Mage Captain Elinon stumbled through what was left of the battlefield in a fugue state. Having the curse removed from his body was like having the flesh stripped from his bones. The process had been agonising, and lengthy. The curse had spread far and wide throughout his flesh, and so far the only way the Healers had found to remove it was to burn it out.

When the process was finished, he had been left a gasping, sweat-drenched mess, but duty demanded that he rise and continue to serve, so he did so.

Seeing movement, he reached down and touched a fallen soldier on the shoulder.

“Do you live?” he asked, rolling the body over lightly and searching his eyes. “Can you blink?”

Some of the fallen were so weak from the curse infecting them they could barely move, unable to even call out to their brothers and sisters in arms for help. Elinon stared hard, eager to find some flicker of life, some hint of movement.

He found… nothing.

Determined not to give up, he reached down and stripped the soldier’s gauntlet, exposing his right hand. Snatching up his wrist, Elinon checked for a pulse while he pushed his magick into his comrade’s body.

It was repulsive. How this man had continued to fight while his body was riddled with this life-sucking curse was incredible, a feat worthy of song and celebration. Yet it had cost this Soldier everything to do so. There was no pulse, no sign of life at all. He was dead.

He’d thought his heart couldn’t possibly get any heavier, but found that, like so many times today, he had been wrong.

Another grain of sand on the scales. How many more until they broke?Closing his eyes for a moment, Elinon gathered himself, then lay down the hand he held. He took a moment to cross the Soldier’s hands on his chest. A simple sign of respect, and also a signal to others searching for survivors not to check again.

Sighing to himself, Elinon stood. Never in his life had he imagined it was possible to be this tired.

Turning, he surveyed the field, still not quite able to believe what he saw.

Bodies lay everywhere, mingled with the shattered remains of skeletons. Skulls, still leaking dark miasma, lay strewn about, intermingled with the fallen Soldiers of the Golden Legion. In all of his career, Elinon had never seen anything like it. He and his comrades didn’t die. They didn’t lose.

They hadn’t lost here, either, yet it didn’t feel that way. Who knew how many would be declared dead by the end of the day. How many had they lost? Of the five thousand that had started the battle, perhaps two thousand had already fallen. With the medical tents full and patients in dire condition laid out on the ground like common cattle, who knew how many more would join them?

Elinon shook his head.

There was no point entertaining such thoughts. He didn’t have the energy to waste for things he couldn’t affect, the only thing that mattered was finding even one more survivor.

Again, he began to move, one foot in front of the other, slowly but surely, his eyes scanning the ground as he moved from one unmoving form to the next.

A flicker of colour caught his eye and he turned, then froze.

“No,” he muttered to himself, too exhausted to summon any emotion. He was simply numb.

Staggering closer, hoping each step would reveal his eyes had been lying, only to be betrayed every time. When he finally stood over her remains, there could be no question.

Mage Attendant Melissa Bertram had always taken care to tie back her blonde hair. She kept it short, tucked into her helmet and did not give the impression of being vain in the slightest, yet she did take very good care of her hair.

Now it was strewn about in the dirt, stained with blood, as she stared silently up at the Mage Captain, clearly dead.

Tears welled up in Elinon’s eyes, then spilled over and ran down his face. The scales broke, and he fell to his knees.

***

“Do we have scouts moving in the surrounding fields?”

“We have… a few. What few have proven fit for duty.”

General Crow scowled, then checked himself.

“Make sure we aren’t taking anyone at their word. I want them cleared by the medical staff before they return to duty.”

“Yes, General,” one of the nearby officers said, then hesitated. “Shouldn’t… you be resting, General Crow?”

Crow levelled the officer with an icy stare.

“I was not involved in the fighting. Do you truly believe I can ask those who were to continue in their duty while I rest in my tent? Don’t be a fool.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

In truth, he knew he was far from his best. He had refused to be treated for a long time, knowing he hadn’t suffered from the curse nearly as badly as many others. Only when forced to had he begrudgingly accepted healing, and now he felt that if he released his two-handed grip on the table before him, he might well fall over.

“Do we know where the undead have scattered to the north?” he demanded, pointing to the map spread across the table with his chin.

“Not entirely, General. We know a significant number of the more advanced undead moved through the graveyard once they had crossed the river, but where they went after that, we can’t be sure.”

It shouldn’t matter too much, but he hated to leave loose ends. Without the Necromancer to fuel them with magick, his minions should fall apart on their own, given time. Until then, it was possible they might launch a counter attack to try and rescue their fallen master, which was why he had been moved back to the fortified camp as soon as possible.

Even thinking of the captured mage was enough to cause fury to bubble up in his chest. This battle was nothing less than a stain, not only on his own record, but on that of the entire Golden Legion. A single man had slain thousands, thousands of them. Only the intervention of Honoured Stennis at the behest of Lady Herimar had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

It was galling, embarrassing, infuriating.

But even that anger paled in comparison to the rage he felt at the desecration of his Soldiers’ remains. That even a single one had died was one too many, that they had been butchered, the flesh stripped from their bones and their souls forced into servitude, was an insult to The Five Divines themselves.

He would enjoy watching that Necromancer burn. Not just his flesh, not just his bones, but his very soul, burned to ash so that he might never rise again.

“What about those creatures we saw flee to the south? Have they been tracked?”

“We have a small team trying to hunt them down, General, but… they are exhausted. With your permission, I would like to recall them.”

The General considered the request for a moment, then nodded his assent.

Between hunting down the remaining skeletons, searching for survivors, and caring for the remains of the dead, there was an unbelievable amount of work to be done and very few who were capable of doing it.

It was an unfamiliar position for the General to be in, and he did not like it in the slightest. After another moment of thought, he made a snap decision.

“Recall all the scouts. We don’t have the manpower to be stretched in too many directions. Any who are too fatigued should return to camp and rest for two hours. The rest can be tasked with cleaning up the battlefield. We need to get our people out and care for the dead.”

“Yes, General.”

Any place littered with dead bodies and an abundance of death magick was a recipe for disaster. The battle had ended an hour ago, and already the mages were warning him there were early signs of wild undead forming.

For now, the remaining undead would roam free, but they wouldn’t get far. Tomorrow, General Crow would ensure they were all exterminated, each and every one. Then the Necromancer would follow.

Something to look forward to.

***

“I’m unsure if you are the bravest person I’ve ever met, or the most foolish.”

Once again, it was difficult to read the expression on the face of Honoured Stennis. Whatever had moved him during the battle was once again hidden behind a stern mask. Yet, he was talking more than he had before, a sign that he was still perturbed.

It was hard for Merigold to interpret how she felt, for there was one, overriding and abundant emotion that washed out all of the others: relief.

Relief that she had survived, relief that they had won the battle, relief that the Soldiers hadn’t all died.

“Perhaps a bit of both,” she said, smiling. Too drained to be on guard, she was expressing herself more clearly than she should, but couldn’t care enough to bother. “I genuinely believe I was too scared of losing the battle to stand still. Perhaps it was my cowardice that pushed me forward rather than any sort of bravery.”

Stennis seemed to consider this.

“That sounds like bravery to me,” he said quietly.

His gaze was intense, and Merigold, not for the first time, found herself having to look away rather than meet it. Whatever was to be seen in there, she wasn’t willing to face it, wasn’t prepared for what it might mean, so she turned her head and pretended it didn’t exist.

That was safer, for the both of them.

“What… what will become of the Necromancer?” she asked.

The two of them had returned to the camp shortly after the battle had concluded, Stennis insisting that she be moved for her own safety. Merigold had been more than willing to go, but hadn’t expected the restrained form of Tyron Steelarm to accompany them on the journey.

Once they had arrived, he had been carried away to a separate section of the camp, and she hadn’t heard anything about him since.

“Once they are ready, the Mage Corps will enact a Soul Annihilation ritual,” Stennis replied, folding his hands behind his back. “That way they can be sure he will never be able to return.”

Merigold frowned. It sounded ghastly, but she supposed it was only deserved after the things he had done.

“When will they be ready?”

“Not for a day, at least,” Stennis said with certainty. She looked at him curiously, and he shrugged. “Most of the Mages who are still active are busy assisting with healing. It will take at least a day to finish that work, then rest and recover well enough to perform such a taxing ritual.”

That made sense. After what they had gone through, she would have imagined the mages would need days of rest at least, but then again, they were gold ranked. She hesitated for a moment, unsure how her next words would be received, but she spoke them regardless.

“I want to speak to him.”

Stennis stared at her.

“Why?”

At least he didn’t outright reject her, though he didn’t exactly have that right.

“I want to know why. Everything that happened here, not just today, but in the western province, he was the catalyst. I… I’ve been reading about it, studying it, I understand the numbers better than anyone in the realm… but I don’t know why. He’s the only person who can tell me that.”

“He’s insane. A mass murderer and a heretic. Does it matter why he did it? Even if he told you, what would you do with that knowledge? What does it change?”

Merigold hung her head.

“Nothing… I suppose.” She looked up and met his eyes once more. “But I still want to know.”

They remained like that for several long moments, searching for something that they couldn’t find.

“Fine,” he told her. “He’s being held in a null-magick field in the centre of the camp. Get some rest first. I’ll escort you over there later tonight when more soldiers have returned to camp. Will that suffice?”

She nodded.

“Thank you, Stennis.”