Book of The Dead

Tyron stepped through the main gate of Kallas, enshrouded by the thick cloud of miasma that still belched from the miasma foundries behind him. He didn’t feel any sense of triumph; he hadn’t achieved what he had set out to do. This was merely one stop along the still-long road to vengeance. The Southern Province was far from conquered, but at least a few houses had lost their private armies.

Through the conduits, his mind was filled with the ongoing conflict, now spreading through the streets as skeletons descended from the walls to hunt down the last of the defenders. Very quickly, the situation was growing messy. There hadn’t been nearly enough time for the population of the city to empty out the west gate, and now terrified citizens flooded everywhere, running through the streets, screaming in terror as they saw the undead marching towards them.

It was inevitable that innocents would be caught up in the fighting. Spells and powerful skills were being exchanged across cobbled roads, inside buildings, through market squares. Detonations, Bone Lances, shards of stone flying through the air to pierce flesh and shatter limbs. By far, the safest place to be was inside their homes, but how could he tell them that? It’s not as if they would listen if he told them, so all he could do was leave those inside alone as much as possible and hope everyone got the message.

He’d done what he could for the regular people of Kallas, he simply didn’t have time or energy to spend on them any further.

“We’re going to lose over ten thousand skeletons in this assault.”

The voice was flat, unemotional, despite the turmoil he could sense within the soul of the speaker. So much hatred, anger and sorrow within, and no way to direct it to the one deserving of those emotions.

“That’s less than you expected,” Tyron remarked to General Crow.

No longer a member of the Golden Legion, the general was now a wight, his features painted in ghostly green spirit-flesh, though Tyron had made him continue to wear his old armour. Perhaps half in respect and half in mockery.

“It’s far higher than it needed to be.”

“We didn’t have time to be subtle,” Tyron said. “You’ve done well.”He wasn’t sure why he bothered to praise the man. Crow didn’t want to do well, didn’t want to help Tyron achieve his vengeance, kill the people of the Empire and spill the divine blood of the Nobility. Twisted, filled with horror, rage and pain, he served because Tyron had bound him in unbreakable chains, lashing his soul to his corpse and winding commands around his mind.

Still, it felt unnecessarily impolite not to mention he’d done a good job when he had. With General Crow handling the overall disposition of the troops, the numberless mistakes that Tyron would have made were nowhere to be seen. With a single mind able to reach out and direct the wights, Tyron’s horde moved as smoothly as pieces on a game board, everything in the right place at the right time.

All he needed was for Crow to receive more levels and hopefully ascend to Gold. At least he could gain experience by commanding undead in battle, which meant Tyron didn’t need to send him out to fight directly.

After struggling with himself, General Crow could only reply with a nod, unable to offer any words.

Tyron stepped to the side as the cavalry rode into the city under the command of Janus the wight. Largely useless when assaulting the walls, they would prove their worth fighting in the streets, according to the general at least.

More and more of the horde continued to file through the gate, including the miasma foundries, which he now powered down. Despite the fighting not lasting for long, an enormous amount of magick had been consumed. The Grave Moons remained in place, however, as they would continue to filter energy down to the horde, so it was worth continuing to maintain them.

However, he would need to shut them off fairly soon. Beneath the three Grave Moons, the environment would eventually become something similar to what he had experienced in the Realm of the Dead, absolutely suffocated with Death energy to the point it became inimical to life.

He himself would be able to endure, but the inhabitants of the city? Not so much.

Remaining within the heart of the horde, Tyron continued to move deeper into Kallas as his undead fought and drove the defenders back towards the eastern gate. He saw, through the watchful eyes of his ghosts, that people continued to flood through that opening in the wall, fleeing down the river road as fast as they could.

Given enough time, the city would empty itself, but he couldn’t afford to wait that long.

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It took several hours of brutal street fighting before Tyron finally reached his destination. In the grand market square before the gates to the Kallas city palace, the Necromancer gathered with his core troops. Still, the gates were locked, a handful of terrified Soldiers on the walls.

Deep in his chest, he felt a rising heat as the embers of his rage kindled into flame.

If he was going to find any members of the Nobility within Kallas, it was going to be here. At his command, the square was swept clean, the entrances bared, the stalls removed to create a broad, empty space, nothing but a fountain in the centre, dedicated to the glory of House Ladisla.

Tyron raised his hands, and began to speak.

It was the first time he had cast magick himself since the siege had begun. There was no need for him to intervene personally up to this point; anything he’d needed to do, he could do through the demi-liches without having to open his own mouth.

Indeed, he didn’t need to perform this ritual himself either, but he chose to. Perhaps he had simply grown bored not doing what he most enjoyed.

When the first of the Words of Power slammed into the air, it was as if all sound had been sucked out of the city. No air remained, there was no space for any sound except the syllables that rolled from his tongue and beat into the fabric of reality as though it were a drum.

With precision, his hands flickered from one sigil to the next, almost faster than the human eye could track as he continued to speak, bending and warping his power to the desired shape, working through the intricate magick he had designed after days of solid effort. He’d needed something to do while waiting for the horde to cross the desert.

Magick thundered through him as he gave it purpose through the sigils of his hands and the words from his mouth, weaving, crafting and constructing what was, to the eyes of most Mages, a flawless work of art.

To his own, it was barely passable and needed a lot of fixing.

All throughout the city, the people of Kallas huddled, unable to understand what was happening as reality bent and warped around them, unable to speak or cry out, unable to hear anything at all but that inevitable voice.

A dark cloud of purple and black energy materialised before Tyron, expanding as he poured more and more power into it until it was equal in size to the gate itself.

It wasn’t necessary to use a gesture to unleash a spell; indeed, his mother had greatly frowned upon the practice, labelling it as ‘a crutch for the incompetent and feeble-minded’. But then, she had been a Battle Mage, casting her spells in the thick of the fighting. She’d needed her hands to defend herself.

A slight gesture was surely permissible.

Tyron brought the ritual to a close, raised his hand, and in the slightest of motions, pushed it forward.

From the cloud of energy, a Death’s Head emerged, then rocketed forward. Tyron couldn’t see the effect of his spell, not directly, but the ear-splitting screech of twisting metal and the earth-shaking roar of shattering stone, followed by the cloud of dust and debris that soon filled the air, told the story well enough.

He stood patiently as his demi-lich minions shielded him from harm, and once the dust had cleared, he saw the gate, standing proud and tall not a moment ago, twisted and bent, hanging off its enormous hinges.

“Reasonable,” he murmured to himself, “though probably not efficient.”

For the same amount of power, he probably could have destroyed a gate twice that size, if he used it better. For a rough attempt, it wasn’t too bad.

“You’re never satisfied are you?” Filetta said from beside him. “Didn’t you just knock down that gate in spectacular fashion?”

“I wouldn’t say spectacular,” he replied, frowning. “It was fine.”

“Fine?” she rolled her ethereal eyes. “The gate is down, isn’t it?”

“Sure, it was effective, but that’s just one measure of a spell.”

The undead began to pile into the palace grounds, sweeping aside the feeble resistance remaining around the gate as they entered.

“Well, it seemed reasonable enough to me. If I could knock down an enchanted gate by speaking at it, I’d be pretty satisfied.”

“I’m not just speakingat it,” he retorted. “It’s a lot more involved than that. Shouldn’t you be going in there and killing people?” he demanded, pointing towards the palace.

Filetta smiled.

“If you ask me like that, how can I refuse?”

She danced away, blowing him a kiss before drawing her wicked twin daggers and slipping inside the walls amongst the regular skeletons.

Tyron sighed, then raised his hands again. After a moment, he thought better of it, lowering them back down. Although he hadn’t expected it to be a problem, the effect of his casting on the people still trapped in the city was probably a bit… overwhelming.

Low levelled and with meagre blessings from the Unseen, most common folk simply weren’t built to withstand that sort of thing. He should probably cast through a demi-lich.

It didn’t take long to conjure the Ossuary, the skeletal arch and ominous door set in the centre materialising within the square. Immediately, the door swung open and the workforce from Granin emerged, looking around themselves in disbelief.

“Going to be a busy day,” he said without a change of expression. “I’ll have them start coming over. Did Richard and Briss come?”

“We did, Master,” Richard said hastily, stepping through the door, Briss on his heels.

“Good,” Tyron nodded to them. “Wait here and help the others. I’ll be back soon.”

Not waiting for a reply, he turned and strode into the palace, the fire in his chest rising to a roaring flame.

There were nobles in here. He was sure of it.

He wasn’t aware of the grin that slowly overtook his features.