“You will meet your end on this field, evil creature !” the armor-clad general bellowed, swinging his spiked staff down at her head.
She rolled to the side to evade the deadly strike with a mirthful laugh, then nimbly sprung back to her feet. Her opponent launched a series of ferocious attacks that she dodged seemingly effortlessly while rearranging her hair and shaking the dirt off her dazzling white dress.
“You do realize you look a lot more like a monster than I do right now, Robert,” she retorted with an angelic smile.
“Wait what ?! Are you confusing me with- ARRGHH”, the general yelled as she took advantage or his distraction to throw a corrosive spell at his legs. He had instinctively dodged but his skin had melted where it had grazed him. He then had to fight through the pain and wasting a few precious seconds smashing the spell that had shifted into an ethereal snake and slithered back toward him. He looked back at the necromancer just in time to see flash of light headed straight for his heart. He gathered his Ki and mentally shouted “break” to disperse the new curse. He struggled for a few terrifying instants before it sluggishly split in half and vanished a few millimeters from him.
Damn that’s hard. As much as he despised the necromancer for her rebellion, he grudgingly respected her skill at spell-craft. All the more so because practically none of her spells were infused with any of the Elements. They were all pure, weak, unstable mana. And yet, they had a devastating power, an unstoppable strength the like of which he had never encountered before. Coupled with her creativity and the natural versatility of raw magic, it felt as if each flick of her wrist produced a work of art. A heretic work of art, he corrected mentally, admonishing himself for his blasphemous thoughts.
Unfortunately for her, that was precisely why General Orwell was not ordering a retreat. The previous spell had been death attuned. Which, coming from anyone else might have meant nothing but for this specific necromancer, gave him key information : she was running on fumes. Her uncaring demeanor was an act that she was keeping up at high cost in an attempt to scare him off. Her own reserves had to be practically empty, for her to settle with merely shaping the energy she siphoned from the ambient death.
He glanced at the battlefield around them.
The place was littered with dead soldiers, most wearing gray armor and red capes embroidered with the imperial Sun. The rest of them donned the same armor, but with the cape ripped off and replaced with a hastily scribbled setting sun.
The remaining living fighters were only the Dread Legion, the Spell Guild, and Knight Airiel. And an enemy horde of undeads and golems, if you could call them living.
The Dread Legion had managed to go through the fighting mostly unscathed, ganging up on individual opponents with overwhelming strength and viciousness. Cowards and maniacs, he sneered internally. But useful ones. They were currently on the verge of finally putting down the last survivor of the necromancer’s inner circle, Knight Airiel, who was covered in wounds and holding her side with a desperate expression. With reason !
She was the last truly sentient enemy soldier, now. Only her master’s affinity with necromancy and the Heretic arts brought some balance to the battle, as she raised a new undead minion for every man that fell !
Stolen story; please report.
The aptly named Spell Guild, some twenty mages standing behind the Dread Legion, the most famous group of spell casters this side of the desert, was completely unscathed. Not that their lack of involvement was their fault, Orwell had commanded them to stay safe and concealed in the background for this very moment.
“Mages, now !” he ordered them with a hand sign.
Immediately, they spread out in a circle around the general and his opponent. A brief, undecipherable expression flashed on the necromancer’s face as she noticed the move, and she sent a massive spell of dark light toward the Dread Legion a mere second before a golden translucent dome rose from the circle of mages.
The very air seem to vibrate and screech in agony as the torrent of death energy submerged a full third of the Dread Legion, reducing them to dust and ashes, taking Knight Airiel down in passing.
“...”
“Did you just kill your friend?” The general asked incredulously.
“She was going to die anyways,” she shrugged in response, right hand sliding into her pocket. “She would have been happy to bring a few murderous bastards with her.”
Suddenly, the dome seemed to snap in place, and she felt her connection with the battlefield fizzle. Deprived of that vast well of death energy, the necromancer’s spells automatically snapped back to feeding on her own reserves, and she was forced to indiscriminately sever them all at once lest she be drained completely.
Her illusions and enchantments collapsed into particles of light, revealing her actual appearance underneath. Her healthy skin turned overly pale, with dark marks of exhaustion under her eyes. Her pristine looking dress now sported numerous tears and bloodstains. Her left arm was bandaged and tied to her body, and she had bleeding cuts on her bare feet and legs. There were tears of pain and sadness spilling from her eyes, and her placid expression faded to reveal one of distress and angst.
She was breathing laboriously. With no more magic to support her battered body, she barely managed to remain standing.
Everyone on the battlefield froze. The survivors of the Legion, still stunned by their near death experience, stared with a mix of hatred, hunger, and fear. Some of the Guild mages looked at her with a paradoxical blend of contempt and awe, while others averted their eyes guiltily. In the sudden stillness of the fields, the cold wind was howling.
She fell to her kneses and looked up at the Orwell who was walking toward her with a grim expression on his face. He unsheathed a dagger and grabbed her by her hair. He pulled her roughly against him, exposing her throat and held her head up with his blade, a trickle of blood sliding down her neck. He turned to the watching soldiers.
He had to make an example of her. Those were his orders. It was not cruelty to the dying, it was mercy to those who might consider following in her footsteps.
“Finally the lie is exposed. There is the monster you are all afraid of ! Just a girl, starved, hopeless, powerless, and dying.”
“Remember this, burn it into your eyes, print this scene into your elemental gems, and spread the story. Let this be a lesson for all who betray the Empire ! This. Will. Be. Your. End.”
He paused. The world was deathly quiet, his audience not daring to make a sound. Even the wind quieted down in anticipation.
He slit her throat.
He relaxed his grip and let her collapse to the ground with a gurgle.
As she convulsed on the trampled grass, spurts of blood painting it red, the containment spell remained in place. That was standard procedure when killing a necromancer. The same spell that prevented their kind from using the surrounding death as fuel also cut off their connection to any soul container, thus ensuring they wouldn’t have a way of clinging to life.
The dying girl locked eyes with one of the mages, started in recognition, and managed to give a small, sad smile. The mage averted her gaze.
The guild-master gave a silent prayer.
The Dread Legion leader licked his lips with a smirk.
The general grabbed his spiked mace and lifted it high above his enemy’s head.
A sickly crunch hailed the birth of a new era for the Empire.
----------------------------------------
As our opponent and former friend passed away, the rain abated and the sun finally pierced the dense canopy of the clouds. The moronic warmongers whom we were compelled to work for took it as the favor of the gods returning, some even calling it the hand of the sun-blessed Emperor saluting their success. Ignorance !
Even those of us who despised the magics Neira had dabbled in shivered at the definite proof, that, as we had theorized, she had indeed been capable of obscuring the eye of the Divine in daytime.
We had won, but many of us already felt the loss of our former sister.
Neira no-name, and Neira many-names. Neira the reckless, Neira the sundowner. Researcher, insurgent, artist, heretic, and airhead.
May she rest in peace.
Journal of Drake, Guild-master of the Revered Guild of spells and magics.