Defiant Necromancer (Book 2 stubbed)

The day after the ogre and her horde arrived, the entirety of the ogre’s army and almost the whole of the beastfolk population, along with most of the Whadesgart townsfolk, gathered on and around the walls of the port.

Tybalt, armored in the thickest and densest armor he could create from bone, covered in spikes and blocking every bit of skin except his face and hands from reach, stood in the shade of the walls for as long as he could. His long bone spear leaned against the wall behind him, taller than the necromancer himself by over a foot. He had a thick bone shield in his left hand.

It was looking like a hot day. He would keep this fight short - or try to.

I have to take her apart without killing her, he thought. What an annoying custom the ogres follow.

This situation was partially his own fault, of course. He had immediately agreed to this duel, and then he had told Andric he would at least make his best effort not to kill Ragga.

Tybalt had fought and killed ogres before in his Army career, and it usually ended with the squad burning all of them, alive or dead, because it was hard to be sure they wouldn’t get back up otherwise. Decapitation also worked, but it was more difficult, since ogre bones were thicker and stronger than human ones. Attempting that was a good way to destroy your spear, sword, or dagger. Destroying the heart was unreliable unless you had already worn down the healing factor sufficiently, which was hard to gauge.

In short, fighting ogres was a nuisance, and doing so while agreeing not to kill them was doubly so.

The reward would hopefully be worth it: a capable new ally, and all her followers would recognize the strength Tybalt was showing by defeating her without killing her. None of the horde would be unfamiliar with ogre regeneration, so it would be obvious how much easier it would have been to kill her than to defeat her while sparing her.

Across from his position, Ragga was still in her tent. In between, a couple of the Bloodlady’s minions walked around in the sand, measuring out a large space. As he watched, they began tracing out a large circle in the soil.

Enough space to maneuver, Tybalt judged.

It was maybe sixty or seventy feet in diameter.

He began to pace back and forth, stretching, rolling his shoulders, cracking his neck, and generally trying to keep limber as he waited.

The visual language was clear enough. Let those watching see that he was ready to go - eager, even! - while Ragga delayed.

After five or ten minutes of this, the ogre leader finally emerged from her tent, wearing simple leather clothing - a top and a loincloth, with her midriff bare in the middle. She was really poorly equipped for a serious fight. Something he would fix after she bent the knee to him.

Tybalt noted that she had a smaller female ogre with her, carrying a large iron club that seemed too big for anyone but Ragga.

The Bloodlady roared something, some savage threat in a language Tybalt didn’t recognize - she seemed to know a few of those - and the ogres around her shouted something that sounded like affirmation.

She thumped her ample bosom with one great fist, and Tybalt noticed that she had a metal band wrapped around her hand.

That looks like it hurts. Tits don’t handle punches well, I wouldn’t think. They’re sensitive.

As she lowered the hand again, Tybalt recognized the band as a weapon, an iron-studded device fitted around her knuckles.

Well, I’m not going to let her hit me with that…

Even armored from head to toe, he wasn’t interested in getting hammered with those iron knuckles.

Ragga took her club from the other ogre and stalked toward the circle. The weapon was long and rough, and it would play to her kind’s strengths: superior reach and brute force.

After a moment, Tybalt grabbed his spear and joined her, entering the opposite end of the ring from his opponent.

As if on cue, Dero’s magically magnified voice filled the air. Tybalt had let her have the job of commentating the fight.

“In the west corner, coming in at just over six feet tall, we have the Beastking, Tybalt Black, High Priest of Death God Mudo, ruler of all you see before you and more, the necromancer who created the undead army that holds this city! A man who has fought two dragons and lived to tell the tale! Breaker of heroes, tamer of paladins, scourge of the Salt Waste, a living natural disaster! A man of many talents, most of them not fit to discuss in polite company!” She paused, and Tybalt smiled grimly.

Damn right. I’m certainly not losing to an ogre after fighting two dragons. I know exactly what to do to win.

“In the east corner, standing at just over ten feet tall, we have Bloodlady Ragga the Faithless, leader of the matchless horde that dominated the Discontented Lands! Eater of still-living flesh, bane of any mage unfortunate enough to step into her path, terror of the southeast! The two leaders fight for dominance and to seal an alliance as per ogre traditions! Both agree that the winner is to be supreme over their combined forces. The victor will be accepting oaths of fealty following the duel in a mandatory ceremony from supporters of both sides.” There were cheers from the ogres, wolfmen, and Ragga’s human supporters and even some - albeit slightly delayed and more nervous - from the mixed human and beastfolk side that supported Tybalt.

Everyone on both sides had been told to come and watch the fight.

Fewer people had been told that the necromancer was gambling his control over the Salt Waste and the army he had assembled on a single fight with an ogre.

But it was his army, his territory, his position to gamble. No one could say a word to the contrary. That was part of the point of simply informing them now, like this, rather than in a way that would leave some room for argument.

A much smaller, non-enhanced, female voice carried from the top of the wall, just barely audible over the crowd.

“Don’t die, darling!” Vidalia called. He rolled his eyes. He’d spent the previous night with the foxgirl, and her attitude about him going into a life or death battle the next day had been nonchalant.

“You don’t need any help,” she’d said simply. “Try not to kill the poor ogre. She doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.” Then she had turned around with a charming smile and patted her bare ass invitingly. “Round two?”

Back in the desert, Dero amplified her voice again.

“Are both combatants ready?”

Tybalt nodded.

Ragga roared her enthusiasm.

“Begin!”

Tybalt gathered his mana around him instantly and activated Bone Puppetry at the same moment that Ragga charged.

It failed to grab hold of her skeleton. Unsurprising, since ogre hides were almost as magic resistant as dragon scales. So he pivoted to his next move.

Flame of Destruction.

He extended a hand and used his strongest skill immediately, the flames he had copied in his fight with Eolas.

Ragga blocked with the club and continued moving forward, only slightly slowed by the need to defend, but her eyes widened in shock as the fire began to burn through the metal of the club. These were no ordinary flames.

After a few moments of this, she was upon him, her weapon still partially intact. The handle was mostly burned through, but it would hold the weapon together for now. He saw mana gathered in her chest as she drew close, but he was unprepared for what came next. As he was about to Teleport away, she let out a loud, almost deafening roar - and he felt his mana turn to jelly inside him. What had been a reliable source of power wavered.

His flames went out.

What?

She had some kind of magekiller skill.

He raised his shield in time to block the swing of her club - he was a bit faster than her, even though she was clearly stronger - and the blow sent him flying backward.

He hit the ground and rolled but quickly jumped to his feet. Ragga pursued, charging in faster than should have been possible given what he’d just seen.

No, there was mana around her ankles. Another skill, something to boost her agility.

Teleport.

But the skill fizzled. The mana wouldn’t gather fast enough. A lingering effect of the roar that he hadn’t adjusted to yet.

He raised his shield again - he felt the cracks as he lifted it - and it shattered on contact as she hammered him with her club again. Pain tore through his arm, and he thought it might have broken. But he also sensed something else as he staggered backward.

His mana flowed through him normally again. Faster than normal, even, like blood rushing back to where it belongs after a limb has been cut off from blood flow with a tourniquet.

Can’t let her do that again.

Bone Puppetry.

The bone spikes attached to his armor - which had been hand-crafted and affixed in such a way that they could easily pop free as soon as someone was stuck with one - all came loose under his power.

Dozens of sharp bony skewers shot into Ragga, penetrating eyes, ears, mouth, throat, elbows, knees, cutting her Achilles tendons, stabbing into her shoulder blades.

She let out a pained sound, but it was a gurgle more than a roar or even a moan. He had temporarily disabled her ability to use that magekiller skill by stabbing her throat.

As her flesh began knitting itself back together before his eyes, he continued using Bone Puppetry. The largest shard of the shattered shield rose and cut her throat more deeply this time, to the bone. She swung her club at him, but he managed to duck underneath it. He moved to the side, and she stomped one foot. It was surrounded with mana, so he half expected what came next.

The ground underneath them exploded with raw energy, throwing him backward, tumbling head over heels. It wasn’t very damaging, clearly just meant to get distance for a moment while her healing did its work.

Tybalt rose instantly to his feet and rushed forward, mana gathering in his chest.

One of Ragga’s eyes healed - she had plucked out the bone shards there almost immediately - and it stared at him as he charged.

A long, wounded arm swung her club in his direction. At the moment just before impact, he strengthened his bone armor to the limit with Bonebreaker. This time, the club snapped in two at the thin place Tybalt had almost burned through with his dragonfire.

The necromancer was pushed back a step, but the force had been weakened with the weapon breaking. He resumed going forward after a split-second.

Then he was in front of her.

Breath of Decay.

He breathed out a cloud of mana-infused air, and it hit Ragga in the eyes, nostrils and mouth.

A moment later, her face began to melt. Her chest heaved as she coughed, her insides beginning to dissolve as well under the effects of his power.

Even as she was doubling over with pain, she managed to swing at him with the iron band around her knuckles. The blow caught him in the chest and managed to crack the chest plate of his armor. Tybalt staggered back, the air forced from his lungs, but he kept his feet this time.

Then Ragga was clawing at her own chest, ripping at her leather clothing as if she could somehow fix her internal injuries if she could just tear through the leather and then her skin. She gurgled in pain again, but the sound carried little of the mana from her earlier mana-disrupting roar. Not enough to disrupt his control of his mana.

Tybalt used Bone Puppetry to push the spikes that impaled her in a bit deeper and brought up the ones she had pulled out to gouge her eyes again and slash her throat once more. He needed to keep her from using that magekiller skill.

He also pulled his long bone spear back to his hand. He had dropped it in the midst of getting smacked around by a ton of ogre.

Then he lunged forward and stabbed the point through her chest and into her heart.

“Time for you to surrender, Ragga!” he said loudly.

She grunted something that sounded like defiance despite her probably melted lungs and visibly partially dissolved lips, so he pushed the spear in deeper.

Then Ragga’s fist smacked into the side of his helmet. Bonebreaker strengthened the material protecting his skull - and the skull itself - in the moment of impact, but it still staggered him and sent ringing through his head.

Have it your way.

He raised his hand and let loose more of his Flame of Destruction, burning away what remained of her top, destroying the arm that reached out to try and stop him - what remained of the limb dropped to the ground in charred pieces - and incinerating the outer layer of flesh and skin that covered her torso.

He canceled his flames as soon as he could. His mana was starting to run low, and if she didn’t go down soon, the momentum of this fight would reverse.

But now Bone Puppetry could reach her skeleton, he sensed. This would provide his finishing move.

He grabbed her rib cage with the power and squeezed until he felt her lungs pop beneath his grasp.

And still, she rose to her feet. Her regeneration had pushed the bone spikes out of their holes while he’d been focused on wounding her torso. Her tendons, the elbow on her remaining arm, and her knees all seemed to be functioning again.

Even for an ogre, her regeneration was superlative.

She staggered forward, reaching for him, face bloated as it tried to regenerate from being partially melted.

Sorry, Andric.

The necromancer let loose a final burst of draconic fire as she advanced on him, tearing a hole through her chest, where her heart was, and out the other side.

Blood sizzled within her, and the ogre looked down at her chest, then finally fell to her knees again.

“You win,” she mouthed. Then she slumped forward and landed in the sand.

Fuck, I would hope so after all that…

A moment passed, in which no one moved.

Then Tybalt raised a fist in the air. He was the last one standing now.

“We have a winner!” shouted Dero.

That was the beginning of the flood.

Every Elder, every important ogre, every important beastman, every head of household in the town, began making their way from around the town or atop its walls to Tybalt’s position, each person bowing or falling to their knees, one by one, to swear loyalty to the Beastking.

And a cadre of monks with healing skills - Kistana’s subordinates - rushed in to save Ragga.

Honestly, she’d probably be fine without the help, the necromancer thought darkly. She’s too stubborn to die.