Necromancer

  Graeme Ing

  Necromancer

  Copyright © 2014 by Graeme Ing

  All rights reserved.

  First Edition 2014

  Cover by Erin at EDHGraphics

  Interior art by Bradley Cavin

  Edited by Lynnette and Michael at “Labelle’s Writing on the Wall - Editorial Services”

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Graeme Ing.

  For my darling wife,

  and her fascination for all things dead.

  The stench of undead in the street was palpable. A persistent breeze off the harbor carried the vile odor to where Hallum and I lurked in the shadows.

  “I think they’re that way, Maldren.” He pointed to a narrow street that curved down toward the harbor.

  Dogs barked in the distance and somewhere a man and woman argued, but otherwise the city lay silent and menacing. Vandals had decapitated the nearest street lantern, and the pale light from Lunas barely penetrated the chasmlike street, flanked on both sides by tall tenements.

  There was one way to find the creatures. I drew a strand of magic from deep within me and shaped it into Perception, and then I pushed out the invisible field of magic in a cone ahead of us.

  My mind twitched as I sensed my surroundings, much like a spider detects prey by the tugs on its web. Tiny sparks of energy rippled through my mind, some to the left, others to the right—simply the odd ghost sneaking through the buildings. A couple hundred feet down the street I sensed several larger distortions, like clods of dirt squatting in my mental web.

  Tomb wights. At last, we’d found them.

  I couldn’t stop myself grinning as I squinted into the night.

  “You sense them too?” I whispered.

  A crease deformed Hallum’s high brow. “Three, maybe more. We should return to the Guild and bring reinforcements.”

  “You’re kidding. We can handle them.”

  He had ten solars’ seniority on me, and at twenty-five, I was overdue making Master rank. He was being overcautious as always.

  “Scared?” I said.

  He snorted. “No, just wise. Those things will tear us apart, I’m telling you.”

  He raked his unkempt beard with his long fingernails.

  “It’s what we’re here for. Let’s go.” I started down the street, but he pulled me back and took the lead.

  “I don’t like you, Maldren. You take unnecessary risks. We’ll do this my way. Stay behind me.”

  Lak and all his demons! He always had to take charge. I had to get another partner. Meanwhile, I’d play nice.

  I sighed. “Lead the way then.”

  We crept along the street, keeping close to the buildings on one side as we watched our feet on the uneven cobbles. Most of the tenement windows were dark, but a diffuse orange glow seeped around the drapes in some of them. High above, an open window clattered against its frame in the wind.

  “I’ve never heard of tomb wights venturing up to street level,” I said. “I want to know why.”

  “Who cares? We get rid of them before they cause a panic, then get back to our beds.”

  That was the problem with the Guild today. No sense of pride or curiosity. Just do the minimum amount of work. Hallum sounded like the damn Guildmaster. There was a mystery here and I intended to solve it.

  Halfway through the bend in the street, we spotted two sinister shapes shuffling in the gloom ahead.

  Hallum dived into a dark doorway, and I stepped after him. We peered out. The run-down tenements leaned precariously into the street as if seeking the comfort of their neighbors opposite, or if they too were straining to catch a glimpse of the hideous creatures.

  Their resemblance to humans was vague. Shriveled skin and tattered muscle hung loosely from their heavy frames, revealing the line of every bone, many of which had been twisted and snapped. The bones had mended at awkward angles, fused together by gnarly knots of calcification. Bone spurs pierced their paper-thin flesh. Ragged hair covered their naked bodies except their baldpates, which they raised high into the air. Their constant sniffing and labored panting reminded me of dogs on a scent.

  “Why are we hiding in this doorway?” I asked.

  “I’m studying them. Once they’re distracted we’ll attack.”

  It looked to me like we already had the advantage. Once they caught our scent, all bets were off. We should act now. I stepped into the street.

  The sniffing stopped, replaced by a gut-wrenching growl, and then the wights shuffled closer. My heart thumped. A gust of wind carried their stench, and I recoiled. It smelled like a corpse smothered in rotten cabbage and vomit left to fester in the heat of the day.

  Hallum came up beside me, raised one arm, and threw a ball of blue fire that impacted one of them, searing through its chest. Molten flesh and sparks dribbled from the exit wound in its back onto the cobbles. It uttered a guttural roar, and then both of the creatures launched into a pounce, hurtling toward us on all fours like apes. Hallum edged backward.

  Well, what had he expected?

  “Not Shadowfire,” I yelled. “Use Deathwall.”

  I resisted the urge to fall back with him, tensed, and sucked energy from my gut. Magical fire surged through my veins. Fists clenched, I let loose a blast of shimmering particles. The magic splashed over both wights, and they flared purple before crashing motionless to the cobbles on their backs, their bones cracking. After pulling my knife from its sheath, I set upon the one at my feet and severed its foul head. I kicked it across the cobbles, enjoying the hollow, thumping noise it made before coming to rest against a wall. A dog howled from an adjacent street.

  “Get the other one,” I said, and Hallum mirrored my actions.

  Two more wights rounded the corner at the intersection ahead. We had this. No problem. Like most undead, they didn’t see well, but they had good noses. Pity they didn’t realize how bad their own body odor was.

  A door opened in the building ahead on our left and light spilled out onto the cobbles, silhouetting a brute of a man. He stepped out, hefting an ax. All his weight seemed to be in his chest and shoulders.

  “What’s all the ruckus going on out ’ere?” he cried.

  The wights angled toward him with low growls.

  “Go back inside,” I said.

  “Necromancers!” He spat in my direction. “What foul mischief are you up to?”

  How rude. But I got that reaction a lot. People should have been more grateful when I was saving their behinds.

  “Watch out,” Hallum yelled.

  One of the creatures bounded onto the angled roof of a dormer window that overhung the street. Aged tiles slid and crashed to the ground. It sprang again, pushed off the wall, and landed beside the man. Talonlike fingernails flashed in the lantern light, and the wight raked the man’s forearm, shredding it. The man’s shriek echoed from building to building down the street and into the sleeping metropolis. Blood pulsed from the open wounds, cascading off the man’s useless fingers and onto the ground. The wight yanked the man’s arm, ripping it free at the elbow. I cringed at the sound of tearing muscles and popping cartilage. Blood gushed from the stump, drenching everything. The creature lurched back a step and gnawed on the lifeless arm.

  Oh, that’s nasty. Behind me, Hallum retched onto the cobbles. Really? And he considered himself my boss?

  The burly man in the doorway had guts, I’d give him that. He whirled and sliced his ax into the crea
ture’s torso. The blade crunched into ribs and stuck. He let go and stumbled back through his open door, crumpling to the floor at the foot of a woman, who took up where his scream had finished.

  Other doors opened and neighbors stepped out, holding aloft lanterns and assorted weapons.

  This was turning into a debacle, and the Guildmaster hated a mess.

  “Everybody, back inside,” I shouted. “Bolt your doors. Stay there until morning.”

  While a dozen or more stood about in their nightclothes, discussing events noisily, a group of four men ignored my advice and advanced upon the fourth tomb wight.

  “They’re tougher than you think,” I said. “Let the professionals handle it.”

  Well, one of us was, anyway. I looked back at Hallum, wiping drool from his mouth with the sleeve of his Guild robe. I shook my head. No matter. I knew exactly what to do. I only had to survive this to have a good case for promotion to Master.

  I closed the gap with the injured tomb wight. With the ax still buried in its chest, it continued chomping on the severed arm. Gross. I held out my fist, thumb uppermost, and dispatched a bolt of blinding blue light at its ugly face. The crackling energy forked at the last moment and stabbed deep into both its eye sockets, burrowing into its head space. You can’t kill undead that way, but it sure upsets them. Its knees gave way and it crashed to the ground. I stomped on its chest and hacked its head off.

  I paused to wipe the sweat from my brow and catch my breath. This was fun. What had Hallum been worried about? I jogged to catch up with the foolhardy mob.

  Sure enough, two of them lay in bloody pools when I arrived, one of them little more than a child. I clenched a fist. Damn the men. I had warned them. A lanky, gray-haired man stood abreast the wight that they had managed to bring down. The old man had some good moves as he pounded and stabbed it repeatedly, dodging its thrashing claws. It growled and snapped its jaws repeatedly. The other neighbor was clearly trained militia. His sword was coated with the gray ichor of wight blood as he hacked at its head. It took several attempts before the creature fell still. Dead for the second time.

  The man pointed his sword at my belly, its blade unwavering.

  “Take your perverted experiments elsewhere. We don’t want your kind here.”

  So now it was all my fault? My shoulders drooped. People thought so little of my Guild. I wanted to explain that I was on their side, but there was no sense in arguing, so I rejoined Hallum.

  “We should go before they mob us,” he whispered, eyeing the gathering crowds.

  “We can’t leave those creatures lying in the street.”

  “We go. That’s an order.”

  I scowled at him. He was wrong. A core Guild duty was to protect citizens from the undead among them. I didn’t want children discovering such disgusting corpses in the stark light of day.

  Neighbors continued to flood into the street, giving the wight corpses a wide berth. The crowd talked in hushed voices and glanced frequently in our direction.

  Hallum might have been right about the mob, but we had to get rid of the creatures, and I still wanted to find out why they’d come up out of the undercity.

  I pulled at the neck of my robe and shirt. Sweat beaded on my arms. The night had become unseasonably warm.

  Someone cried out, and I turned to see the gray-haired man limping away from a sewer grate. Steam rose from between the bars of every grate along the street, like a line of geysers a hundred feet apart. What in Belaya’s name was going on?

  I hurried to the nearest one, raising my hands to shield my face against the searing heat rising from below. Vapor shrouded my vision, and even shaking my robe failed to clear the air. The stench of excrement made me gag, and the incessant bubbling of boiling water was loud and obvious. The sewers never got so hot, not even in the balmiest summer.

  People shrieked and hopped about on bare feet like lizards on hot dirt. The melting soles of my boots stuck to the stone cobbles and made a slurping noise as I edged away from the grate.

  Ten gold Malks said fear of the heat had driven the wights above ground, so what else was at work here? My Perception was tingling like crazy, so I projected it wide, up and down the street. Something immense tore at it, fragmenting it, tossing my magic aside like a child’s toy. What could do such a thing? A frightening source of power rippled toward me. Kristach, it was using my own spell to find me. I stumbled under its might and canceled my spell. My pulse raced and I peered into every shadow.

  Without warning, a building exploded into a fireball, lighting up the night. Bricks showered the street, followed by a rolling cloud of dust, from which hundreds of wooden fragments erupted and bounced onto the cobbles and surrounding buildings. Sheared timbers as thick as my torso flew about like kindling.

  I dropped prone and one of them flew end over end inches from my face. It careened through a window, raining shards of glass onto the street. A cacophony of screams, rending wood, and bouncing debris assaulted my ears. Lak and all his demons! I flattened myself against the ground. My hands and cheeks singed against the hot cobbles. I squirmed and tried to shake the prickling pain from my fingers.

  Flames soared a hundred feet into the air. They tore through the now-derelict building and flowed across adjacent rooftops like liquid, igniting them. The crowd scattered, diving for cover or fleeing into their homes. I squinted into the inferno and my eyebrows smoldered. The garish red and orange glow pulsed menacingly against the dark night, hiding the stars.

  Is this how I’ll die, cowering in a gutter?

  The clamor of distant bells announced that the fire carts had been alerted. They might be too little, too late. Smoke billowed along the narrow street. I studied it. Though a light breeze blew the sewer steam in one direction, the smoke moved against it, curling and swirling. It wrapped itself into tight threads that wriggled and writhed like the tentacles of a mammoth sea monster.

  “There’s something…primordial out there,” I said.

  Hallum crawled up beside me and shot me a quizzical look.

  “You think the wights caused that explosion?” he yelled above the roar of another building erupting into flame. “More likely we’ve stumbled upon an illegal alchemy stash. Everfire or lightsticks. Either way, this isn’t a Guild matter. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Not yet.” I coughed against the acrid smoke. “There’s more to this. Help me with Dispel.”

  I drew on the raw energy in my core, but what was I aiming at? I zapped a beam of searing white toward the burning buildings. Vortices of smoke twirled around the beam. Hallum’s spell followed a second later. Our joint spells bounced back at us like a tidal wave rolling ashore. The force threw us both head over heels. My brain was on fire.

  “See?” I screamed at him.

  “See what? Double Dispel did nothing. For Belaya’s sake, let’s get out of here before the whole street explodes. We’ll alert the Black and Reds and they can take over.”

  I shook my head. “We’ve got to find out what’s behind this. Don’t you sense that…immense feeling of malevolence somewhere within the fire?”

  He grabbed my sleeve and tugged me away. “The wights are dead. The fire will dispose of them. We’re leaving.”

  He was wrong. Something new, something sinister, hid beneath the flames and smoke. Never had I felt such power. Hallum was missing all the signs.

  The air was no longer full of flying debris, so I leaped up and sprinted into the center of the street, away from the roof tiles crashing around us. Rivers of sweat stung my eyes. I held my sleeve across my nose and mouth. Thick smoke reduced my vision, yet cries and screams echoed between the close, overhanging buildings. I caught glimpses of people stumbling in all directions, ghostlike in the smoke. Three men stood coughing and choking. A rope of inky smoke slithered among them and coiled tightly about their bodies like a snake. There was nothing natural about its movement.

  Instinctively, I reached for my magic, but doing so sent waves of pain through my body,
thumping inside my skull. Having my own Dispel thrown back at me had hurt. A lot.

  The men jerked and spasmed, tearing frantically at the insubstantial noose around their necks. I locked gaze with a weasel-looking man with matted hair. Madness burned in his eyes. He sucked in a deep breath and smoke leaped into his mouth. He uttered a low snarl and plunged a knife into the heart of the man next to him. His victim, a skinny, older man, crumpled to the ground, laughing maniacally as the blood gushed out of him.

  Despite the heat, my body turned chill and goose bumps rose on my arms. I teetered backward.

  A bulbous-nosed man with ridiculously large ears stumbled into the man with the knife. He clenched and relaxed his fists repeatedly. Big Ears roared and lunged at Weasel Man and they wrestled for the knife. They pushed and punched. Big Ears feigned a stumble and instead bit deep into his opponent’s arm. Weasel Man howled. The knife clattered to the ground and they continued to pound each other with fists.

  “Hallum,” I croaked. “Get over here, now.”

  The world had gone insane. I spun around, fearing every shape in the smoke. One of them loomed before me. I drew my own knife and stared at it, astounded that it didn’t shake. I tensed to stab my imminent attacker, but it was Hallum who stepped out of the smoke. Blood soaked his Guild robe and speckled his face. His chest heaved with every breath and his eyes were skittish. Had the smoke gotten to him too?

  “Is that your blood or someone else’s?” I raised my blade and backed away.

  I toppled over a body, finding myself sprawled next to the prone, weasel-faced man. He twitched, uttered a half laugh, half choking noise, and white froth dribbled down his chin. His hands gripped a knife protruding from his belly. Blood bubbled up and soaked his shirt. Oh Gods! He wasn’t trying to remove it. He was pushing it deeper, twisting it.

  Hallum towered over me. “Give me your hand.”

  Blood dripped from his blade onto his fingers.

  I shook my head and rolled aside. “Get away from me.”