image [https://i.imgur.com/yFu9mOD.png]

V

Undead Caster

‘Help! Help!’ A man burst around the corner of a home to our right. His eyes widened when he saw us. ‘Guards! Please, help me!’

‘Sir!’ my guard captain yelled. ‘Where’s the threat? How many—’

The man stormed past the front exit of the house as the entrance burst open in a flash of light that made me shield my eyes and step back. When my sight recovered, the man was gone.

What the hell?

I scoured our surroundings. Something fell with a thump, and my gaze fell on two leg stumps. I blinked. A groove dug into the road where the upper body should’ve been, leaving smouldering earth in its wake. That’s when the stench of burnt pig meat reached me.

A figure stepped out of the doorway, and a ball of ice formed in my stomach. I had lorded over everyone I’d met. Even my brother was shorter than me. No longer. The shadow which exited the house was twice my mass and two heads taller. He was covered in a heavy, ragged cloak of animal skins with a hood drawn up that looked like a wolf’s head. Embers flickered around his palm.

‘An orc shaman,’ the guard captain whispered beside me.

The orc shifted towards us. His mouth parted to reveal wicked tusks set into a heavy jaw. He raised his palm.

‘Dodge!’ I yelled.

The heat rushed past me as I jumped and rolled to my feet. I summoned my other soldier without waiting another moment. ‘Let the undead draw its attention! Search for an opening!’

The guard captain landed in a crouch behind the fence demarcating the home. He took his bearings before shouting: ‘Understood!’

My gaze flashed to the front. A distorted rumble I took to be a cackle heralded the next fireball. My soldier rushed forward—and he was quick for a dead man. I felt the connection I had with my soldier jerk. In a split second, I realised what he was requesting and gave it to him.

Miasma drained out of me. Then, a blue shimmer consumed the soldier’s buckler like a picture frame. The fireball slammed into the undead’s shield. Sparks flew as the fire and frost energies clashed. My soldier stumbled onto his back foot, but he held. He flung the attack to the side, sending it careening into a house on the opposite end of the street.

Wood splintered and cracked. Fires consumed the rest of the house within an instant. That wouldn’t do wonders for the spreading flames.

‘Careful with the homes,’ I said. Though I doubted it could follow a complex command like that.

The shaman’s cackling stopped after his fireball was blocked, and the subsequent movement of his forehead may have been a frown. He brandished a bracelet strung with animal fangs from his coat pocket and began chanting.

There was no need for words. The guard captain and I blasted from cover while my soldier drew more miasma from me, coating its blade and shield in necromantic frost.

I didn’t speak orcish but the spell was short. The shaman ended on a high note that sung into the ash-sky, then the bracelet pulsed and burst into flames. My undead swung his blade of frost at the artefact right as the ground exploded beneath him. I shied away for the second time this fight, protecting my retinas from the pillar of light that had erupted. No, not light, I thought. The radiating heat waves seared my skin. A pillar of flame.

Fires raged for what felt like forever, the air snapped like whips, and nothing but a shadow remained visible of my soldier.

It’s dead. It had to be. But. The dark and cold energies within me were still giving.

A blue blade carved through the fire, cutting it in half like you would a sandwich. The shaman let out a surprised yelp and tried to jump back, but the blade was too close. The edge cleaved into his temple. Blood spurt and painted the doorway behind the orc. The pillar died.

I glanced at the back of my undead. His leather armour was fused to his skin, and he was so badly burnt in places the two couldn’t be told apart. But he was standing. The soldier pulled out the blade, leaving the orc to drop to its knees.

Something like confusion lined the orc’s countenance. How could he expect something to keep moving after taking that spell head-on? He screamed in rage, defying the entire ordeal, and raised his palm, where embers once more formed.

My eyes went wide. It was still alive?! I rushed forwards, sword in hand—

But the guard captain’s blade tip planted itself in the orc’s throat.

The greenskin gurgled as he reached for his windpipe, his thick, green fingers clasping around the blade.

Stolen novel; please report.

‘Die, shaman,’ the captain snarled. The sword ripped free, opening the airway.

The orc fell on his back. It was quiet for a moment, all three of us waiting for another sign of movement. There was none.

I let out a breath. ‘Good work, Captain.’ He’d used the chaos as a distraction and snuck up behind the orc, just like I’d told him. ‘They’re true to their reputation,’ I said.

‘Yes. Hard fuckers to kill.’ He jerked after remembering who he was speaking to and coughed. ‘Warden.’

‘Don’t worry, Captain. I’ve heard worse.’

As Silent Empress, I’d made it a point to spend time amongst the lower ranks as if I were a part of their unit. Necrons were undead. They were also masterful swearers.

I strode towards the corpse and glanced at my energy.

Miasma =

800/895

Keeping my soldier kicking through those flames had cost less miasma than I’d thought. That was good. I would have energy to spare. Another boon was that my soldier had levelled to lvl. 3, though I wasn’t sure what those levels would do for it exactly.

‘Captain, move away from the shaman.’

He stepped back. ‘…Are you going to raise it, Warden?’

‘If I can.’

I wasn’t certain if my dead were limited to humans, or if I could raise anything deceased. The answer came to me after I stepped through the blood pooling around the shaman and placed a hand on his chest. Death energy throbbed within.

This is new. Because the death was so recent, another option lay before me: I could take the death energy and absorb it. This would power me and refill my miasma levels, giving me more to distribute to my current army. But I couldn’t raise the creature after doing so.

Another time, then.

The death energy went still as I reached out to it. Surprisingly enough, the orc’s heart was still beating, ever so minutely. It, too, went silent after my frost crystallised around it.

‘Rise,’ I said.

My guard captain sucked in a breath as the orc pushed himself off the floor, caring not one bit about its injuries, and knelt like my previous soldiers had done.

[Undead caster, lvl 3.]

Lvl 3. Did it start at a higher level because it had more base strength than the others? It was also a caster. That meant I had access to different types of units. Interesting.

‘I won’t get used to this,’ the guard captain said.

‘You shouldn’t.’

I turned to see my brother hurrying towards us. My other undead was with him. They were unharmed.

‘The villagers?’ I asked.

‘On a horse back to the estate.’

I nodded and gave my army new orders. ‘Soldiers in the front, caster in the middle. We’re making haste.’

There were more screams on the horizon.

Levi bit his lips, swallowing whatever he wanted to say as he glared daggers at my undead.

The guard captain went to join the two soldiers at the front but I pulled him back. ‘You’re with me at the rear. Levi, get in the centre next to Caster.’ It was a simple formation but it would have to do.

‘Caster?’ Levi looked at the orc which had blood running down the side of its temple and neck. ‘It’s a mage? What can it do?’

‘It could conjure fireballs before, Sir,’ the guard captain said.

‘I doubt it still can,’ I said. I could sense a fountain of frost energy within it, but no fire. ‘Figuring out its capabilities is part of this field exercise. Now, stay alert. There could be more of them.’

image [https://i.imgur.com/z6G5s0x.png]

More townsfolk were running towards us.

‘Get to the village exit!’ Levi yelled. ‘We’ve cleared the way there!’

The people needed no more convincing. They sprinted past us, men carrying their children on their backs as their wives ran ahead of them. My chest contracted at the sight.

The guard captain pulled a lone man towards him. ‘Are there more orcs? Where are they?’

‘They’re assaulting the manor house!’ The frightened man said.

‘The manor house?’ Levi said, voice going soft. ‘That’s where Jonathan is.’

‘Jonathan?’ I asked.

‘Our butler, Seph. You know, the one whose served our family for years?’

No recognition showed on my face.

He frowned. ‘Seriously? How can you forget his name—’

I held up my hand to cut him off. ‘How many are attacking the manor?’ I asked the man.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, gaze passing between the siblings. ‘But the reeve took the town guards to head for the manor. They’re all holed up in there.’

That explained where the town security was. Being a town that relied on hunting, foraging, and trading with nearby settlements like Castle Frost, Snowspire had a meagre population of around five hundred. Yet even for a town this small there should be guards since it was close to the wall.

‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘Get to the village exit. We’ll handle it from here.’

The man eyed my soldiers warily before running for his life.

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

image [https://i.imgur.com/z6G5s0x.png]

The manor home was located in the middle of the town in the centre of a T-section. Well, calling it a manor home was doing it a greater service than it deserved. It was twice the size of the homes around it and two-storied. But the wooden exterior was rotting in places. “Twice the size” was also misleading. Perhaps the ground floor had enough space for a common room, a kitchen, and storage closet.

‘No sign of a breach,’ the guard captain said. He frowned. ‘I thought he said they were assaulting the manor.’

‘Maybe Jonathan took the soldiers and ran?’ Levi offered.

‘And go where, Sir? The shaman would fry them if they were out in the open.’

‘I’m not so sure.’ I looked around us. ‘There are no fires this far in. Could be the distance between the homes. Could also be a lack of resources.’

I didn’t know how mages were trained in this world, but if it was anything like my own, they were a rare commodity. The shaman we killed may have been the only one in the assault force.

Our conversation fell silent after we crossed the small clearing keeping us on our side of the T-section. Leather armour squeaked as my soldiers moved. I heard the guard captain’s belaboured breath, and felt Levi’s nervous twitching.

It’s quiet. Too quiet. If there were guards inside, they should’ve seen and signalled us. The manor is compromised, I decided. I opened my mouth to call off our advance—

The front window of the manor splintered, and a glinting object burst past, heading straight for my brother. Levi yelped. The air in front of him shimmered as he hastily swirled his hands but my soldier was quicker than his barrier.

The undead was lifted off its feet as it blocked the object, and Caster pulled Levi out of the way so the soldier didn’t smash into him. The soldier skidded to a halt. My eyes narrowed. The object was a huge cleaver that was partially stuck in his buckler. It had dug into the bone of his arm. That’s some serious throwing power.

A feral roar from behind us. I looked back to the sight of four orcs crawling from their cover on the rooftops. Their clothing was the same as that of the shaman, only their hoods were regular caps instead of a wolf’s head. Two more orcs burst from the manor entrance, and one exited the window. This one was different. Its skin was unlike that of the others: black instead of green. It also didn’t wear a hood or any animal skins, but was draped in full plate except for its head.

‘Puny. Humans,’ it said, voice gruff and harsh while chewing on a piece of meat. It raised its offhand. ‘Kill them.’