Beatrice took yet another ragged breath, cowering with the large rock pressing against her back. She felt panic seeping in, freezing every limb, stunting each thought coursing through her head as she fought hard to suppress it. By any means and reason, she should have been dead… again. But as last time, something had dragged her from the brink rather than beyond it. And instead of her own desperate efforts, it had been the Deathknight.
She knew that Rhys disliked any such labels, but how could she help herself, seeing something out of a fairy tale? Undead were not so fast… shouldn’t be, at least from everything she had seen before. Human constructs would always be clumsy and sluggish - or so she had been taught. Yet Rod moved with the skill of a blademaster and the speed of a diving eagle, not to mention all of that with heavy armor covering his form. Beyond any minion or even living human she had ever met.
And, just as importantly, Beatrice had heard him speak. Just one sentence while she had still been drowsy, after being woken in the middle of an ambush. But she was sure of it. Even if he had sealed his mouth again after that, there was no doubt in her mind, only further supported by how autonomously he had led her away. Like Rod was no less conscious than he must have been in life rather than the pale imitations she had grown used to in the past. For the 1000nth time, Beatrice wondered who in the world Rhys was. From what dark tale he could have possibly crawled out of… only to remember the almost carelessly cheerful man that would not fit in any such story she knew of, traveling with just a single minion rather than the armies to scourge the lands as far as the eye could see.
A shuffling of feet to her right woke her from the pondering. Four corpses were already on the ground while Rod still fought close enough to be visible despite his efforts to bring the clash away, if barely. That seemed to be suddenly backfiring though as a new assailant emerged from the tree line to the side of her, dagger in hand.
“Rod!” she yelled, but there was no reaction as far as she could see. The knight had to be too far away and steel was still ringing in the ongoing battle. With sinking dread, Beatrice realized she was on her own.
By all means, she should have died in the time it took her to come to the realization... again. But somehow the assassin was being too wary to lunge. Instead, they were slowly circling her, approaching one step at a time. Why? Well, it didn’t matter, she needed to focus on survival. She reached for the Change within, manifesting in her palm a little ball of flames. It was easier than it had been in the past and hopefully also stronger. Beatrice quickly tossed it towards the assassin before the smoldering heat actually burned her very flammable fingers.
Then she encountered the same issue that had foiled her before. It hit the attacker, made them flinch, then went out. It was not a real offensive spell, basically just an overcharged firestarter. But she knew nothing better, a fact Beatrice was internally cursing and regretting. She had been lulled into a fall sense of security again, neglecting to learn something to protect herself. The assassin stepped forward and she desperately threw another little blazing orb. That time her assailant didn’t even flinch, knowing that the first had barely scorched their cloak, much less burned through. She stepped backwards trying to make some distance but the figure pursued, closing it instead.
“The answer is in the Change of Death,” Rhys’ strangely rasping voice spoke behind her, making her turn her head in surprise. The older necromancer was lying there, hand clutching a single arrow that must have gone through the right lung and was bleeding quite profusely.
“What?!” she blurted out.
“Dodge!” he shot back instead of explaining. She hurled herself to the side, just barely avoiding a dagger strike from the assassin who had used that distraction to close the distance. She was sure she would be doomed once more, but instead of pressing the attack they retreated far enough to give her another chance. Why?
“Your talent does not lie in flame, you don’t even understand the Change that rules it,” Rhys spoke again, his voice even more clearly strained and wheezing. “It is death in which you thrive. Be it corpses or just their soon-to-be cousins!"
Please, a bit vaguer! She wanted to scream at him but couldn’t afford to let the attacker from her sight again. Even if they were still so stupidly hesitant to just stabbing her while she remained powerless. But she was thinking. Surely, the Change of Death could be applied to ending a life. The question was how. She desperately reached for inspiration… and in its place found observations instead. The strangeness of what was happening. Incongruent facts, adding up in the back of her mind the whole encounter and exploding all at once just as she was trying to think.
The assassin acted as if he didn’t actually want to kill her, just make her think he did. Rod should have heard her cry out yet did not even turn his head to evaluate the situation. Rhys had crawled in from the opposite direction of where their camp should have been. The old necromancers wounds did not quite match the blood stains or the subtle holes in his clothes, not to mention his voice was a bit off for someone with a pierced lung - perhaps not realizing she had witnessed that first hand not long before they had met. And lastly, the wound should not have prevented the more senior necromancer from doing something; Rhys had been so unafraid of mortal wounds before after all.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
All that led her to a single conclusion as she began to cast. Beatrice shaped her Change into a spell just like Rhys had told her to. A new one for her, even if it was a variation of something she had long practiced. It took the shape of a velvet ribbon, half translucent as it grew within Beatrice's hand, though the form was not important - it was just a way of delivery. The 'assassin' did not even try to doge as she physically tossed it and the Change followed alongside it with thrill. Every bit of power she could make her willpower squeeze surged alongside it, connecting with the apparent corpse threatening her. Then she tried to usurp control over the minion.
It felt like hitting a steel wall with her head. Like attempting to dislodge a mountain with bare hands. Beatrice felt the Change in her spell literally desert and join the other side rather than remain on her side of the obviously losing conflict. It was incredible, and again unlike anything she could have predicted, once again expanding her horizons for the brief second that it lasted.
Then Rhys seemed to have realized his mistake and the resistance mellowed down to merely overwhelming instead of insurmountable. Tall merely as a towering obelisk rather the very skies themselves. Almost exactly the same as when she had practiced this exact task with her teacher in the past, who was considered a foremost expert on the discipline. She couldn’t help but turn to stare at him with wide eyes. It was obvious she roughly knew what she had felt and he clearly immediately realized as such. Rhys sighed, and pulled the arrow out of him, actually unwounded. All the while Beatrice was struggling to understand just how many steps down he just had to walk in order to feign at mere mastery.
Just who are you?
----------------------------------------
It was a bit aggravating for Rhys to make such a misstep, if understandable in hindsight.
Most of the time there was really no reason to make his undead more susceptible to someone stealing control from him. As a rule of thumb, basically any necromancer would consider usurping minions so blatantly an act of war, which made it rather rare. Rhys literally could not recall the last time anyone had tried it on him nor how he had reacted afterward. He had been hoping to push the girl into improvising some kind of offensive spell. His bets had been on bonerotting curse of some kind since she was so calcium inclined. Or at least he had expected her to inflict something debilitatingly painful like necrosis to incapacitate the attacker. If nothing else, it might have pushed her towards realizing first hand that hearstopping was surprisingly hard.
Anything really. Pressure and desperation could be great motivators for progress so he had deemed it a good teaching opportunity. Instead the newt had seen through the ruse and glimpsed something more of his secrets. Annoying and bruising his pride. He was far too old to be getting outplayed by novices even in the smallest of ways. Still, it would be against the spirit of his promises to keep it against her, so Rhys instead began to evaluate and ask questions.
“You already had a Deed related to observasion or something like it,” he concluded after a brief mutual interrogation. Not that Rhys himself had explained anything beyond why he had tried to pressure her with the undead assassin.
“I…” she hesitated, then admitted as such after putting her thoughts in order. “Yes. The way you described them I probably do.”
“Want to explain?” Rhys probed, somewhat interested.
“When I was young I would sometimes sneak into the kitchens during the night to… snack,” she explained. “Every so often I had to hide inside the cabinets to avoid a scolding if some of the staff happened to go by. Well, one evening the head chef though it would be a safe hidden spot to discuss with someone the progress of slowly poisoning my family with lead. I haven't thought about it in years but it must have had a huge impact on people."
“That would do it, a Deed of exposing secrets,” Rhys nodded thoughtfully. It also reaffirmed the noble birth hypothesis he had already been confident of - even rich merchants wouldn't have expansive cooking staff - probably leaning high on the scale too. “Well, the reversal you pulled on me probably counts as a small Deed as well so it wasn’t all for nothing even if you didn't invent a spell for yourself. Though I noticed something else that hadn’t been apparent in the simple exercises which could be quite important.”
“What?” she immediately became curious.
“You have another Deed closely related to the Change of Death,” he stated. And not a minor one either. For all it was not up to par against him, the pull she had managed was not explained by just survival of the hanging and the little knowledge she had.
“Yes,” she nodded, but not before once again briefly hesitating. He could almost see in her eyes the moment she had connected the dots to the exact event - whatever that might have been.
“Want to explain?” he attempted the exact same prompting.
“No,” there was a brief pause before a firm denial and a bitten lip.
“Shame,” Rhys shrugged. It seemed like a touchy topic. “Go to try and catch some sleep. We will leave at dawn.”
He walked away before she could grasp for a response, checking on good Roderick who was sharpening his blade with a whetstone. The knight had already gathered the corpses and dug up a grave for the lot, correctly interpretting that Rhys had little interest in raising them... well he would probably still briefly question each just in case they knew something important, but that could be done a bit later. The newt stared at them for a few minutes but eventually she returned back to her bedroll that was still not too far away while the unproductive interrogations and subsequent burrials took place. Rhys patiently waited for her to slumber again, then sat down and listened to the rest of the tale that had been so rudely interrupted.