Book of The Dead

So many had died in the Western Province, millions, their bodies thrown into the pyres and left to burn. Their souls, however, had nowhere to go.

Vengeful and filled with the cold fury only the dead can truly understand, they had drifted over the land unseen and unheard by the living, unable to vent their collective grudge. In time, they would have fallen from the realm, drawn inexorably to the Realm of the Dead, there to be scooped up by the Dread Lords of that place.

Except Tyron had gotten to them first.

Although they had left behind few remains for him to work with, and spirits were far from his preferred form of undead, Tyron was certainly not going to let such a precious resource go to waste.

Storing so many spirits inside a single rock or gem wasn’t feasible, a flimsy receptacle like that would shatter under the pressure. It hadn’t been easy, but he and Master Willhem had managed to create something a little more durable.

The Bone Chest.

Open, it looked more like a mouth than an item of storage. Inside was a pool of darkness so thick it seemed almost like a viscous fluid, thick enough to touch. An incredibly high concentration of death-aligned energy had been required to create this reliquary, and within writhed an entire army of souls.

As his minions had swept across the Western Province, Tyron had them capture those spirits that they could. Brought back to the Ossuary and interred in the chest, they slept, dead to the outside world, just waiting for a chance to have their vengeance on the living.

“Is it a good idea to do this now?” Filetta asked him. “You said that ritual required a huge amount of your power.”

Tyron nodded.“Almost everything I have,” he said ruefully. “I’ll be vulnerable during the casting time, and vulnerable afterwards for a while. Perhaps as many as six hours. If they charged out of the city to fight while I was casting, they might even win. But they’re so determined to wait until the Golden Legion arrives, they won’t set a single foot outside the gates. It’s going to be fine.”

“If you say so,” she said doubtfully, then stepped away, giving him space.

Taking a breath, Tyron ran through the ritual once more in his mind. It wasn’t overly complicated, but it required a tremendous amount of power, and channelling that sort of energy took time. He couldn’t pull it from the reservoirs powering his constructs or even gather the ambient magick, since that was flowing into his horde and fuelling the circles launching his offensive spells at the city.

This time, he would need to supply the energy himself.

Staff in his left hand, he stepped towards the Bone Chest, opened his mouth, and began to speak the Words of Power.

Reality itself groaned under the force of his will.

Once he had begun, there was no stopping. One syllable flowed to the next as he began to summon his magick and give it shape and purpose. Runes engraved on the chest began to light up as they received his power and activated, fuelling the complex arrays within.

Distant at first, but growing louder with each moment, came the wailing lament of the dead from within the total darkness inside the chest. Louder and louder it grew until finally the first spirit burst out of the open lid screeching in anguish before it was snatched up by the ritual and began to circle the chest in a widening loop.

On it went, growing in momentum as Tyron continued to speak. The second soul soon joined the first, then the third, and the fourth, until they began to pour out of the opening with ever increasing speed. Around him the circle of souls expanded and accelerated before it began to climb.

Soon a twisting whirlwind of souls poured out of the blackness, tens of thousands screaming out into the air, forming a storm that rose higher and higher, hundreds of metres into the sky, until it scraped against the bottom of the miasma clouds above.

He stood upon his platform, drawing on the power engraved in the ritual circles there, though he kept it low to the ground, with his staff in his hand. Before him, held up by four skeletons, was another construct he had created while sweeping through the Western Province.

Each syllable slammed into reality, the warping effect rippling outwards like a stone thrown into a pond. What he was attempting to do wasn’t easy—contained within the vessel, the souls were bound, stored using repository magick, but they weren’t actual ghosts.

Creating thousands upon thousands of ghosts at once wasn’t really feasible, even for him, and he couldn’t use the Ossuary to speed up the process as it didn’t apply to non-skeletal minions. Since creating ghosts one at a time was simply out of the question, Tyron had been forced to… get creative.

With his free hand he gave shape to the magick, feeling the arcane energy flowing like a torrent as he stood in the centre of the vortex of souls.

They circled around him, howling and droning in their anguish and despair in an ever-growing spiral.

Yet he wasn’t interested in their feelings of sadness and loss, it was their hatred and anger that he wanted.

More and more power thundered through him as the ritual rose to its climax. All around him, his most powerful minions were gathered, a layering of defenses that turned his position into a veritable fortress.

Tyron himself was lost in the magick, focused entirely on the form and function of his arcane work. This was a mighty endeavour, and he poured out more and more of his reserves to fuel it, until even his fathomless well of energy dropped precipitously low.

With a final word, he slammed his staff to the ground, almost dropping to his knees as a final wave of magick crashed out of him and into the ritual.

Purple light exploded outwards from him before it seemed to be caught in the storm of souls. Following the same path, it spiraled up and up alongside the souls until it reached the very top and vanished into the clouds of miasma above.

Breathing deep, Tyron felt a hand on his shoulder.

“I just need a second,” he said. “That took a lot out of me.”

He reached up to grasp the hand and looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Filetta.

Dove stared back at him.

“I just came over to call you a weak piece of shit. Don’t hold my hand, weirdo.”

Tyron barked a laugh and pushed himself to stand up.

“Seriously though, kid, that’s an impressive as hell piece of magick. You cook that up by yourself?”

“Pretty much,” Tyron admitted, looking up at the still swirling mass of souls. “It’s not as fancy as it seems. This one lacks a lot of refinement.”

“I presume they aren’t going to turn into bound minions, but wild ghosts? I’d hate to be someone alive around here when that happens.”

“Well… it’ll take about a day to finish. When it does, there aren’t that many living beings right where we are. I don’t think we have to worry.”

—

Lieutenant Margerie Ossfel did her best to ignore the screaming of the skulls as they fell down towards the city, just as she tried to close her ears to the whirling tornado of death outside the city walls. She’d served her house dutifully for over ten years, fighting their enemies and the kin, but she’d never had to face anything quite like this.

“Bloody unnerving, isn’t it?” her friend Roald said.

“Stop looking at it, you idiot,” she told him, giving him an elbow to the arm for emphasis. Through his burnished steel armour, he likely didn’t feel it. “They said the Necromancer is trying to frighten us.”

“Well, it’s working,” he muttered.

“Shut your mouth!”

“They can’t hear us from down here,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You’ve always been such a damn stick in the mud.”

“That’s why I’m a Lieutenant and you’re a Sergeant,” she said primly.

“Are you sure it’s not because the Captain wants to get in your pants?”

“It’s because I don’t spread rumours about the Captain,” she said, stomping on his foot.

He felt that one.

“Ow, fuck!” he swore, his face contorted with the effort it took not to break his form. At the ready inside the gate, they might not be on the wall, but they were the most visible troops to the citizens of the city.

“Now shut up and look professional. That goes for all of you,” she growled to the hundred men and women under her command. Positioned directly inside the northern gate, with the two massive, heavily fortified towers rising on either side, it was an important deployment, and she intended that House Tellyn would be proud of their efforts.

Not that they had to do much other than stand at parade rest and look impressive.

“Yes, Ma’am!” they replied in chorus, not wanting their own feet to suffer.

Lieutenant Ossfel nodded with satisfaction before she resumed her own stance, legs shoulder-width apart, hands clasped at the small of her back, facing inward toward the city.

“Show off,” Roald muttered from the side of his mouth.

“You want me to get the other foot? I swear, if you weren’t so good with a sword, you would have been fired, branded and thrown into the rifts years ago.”

“Divines forbid,” he shivered, then turned his gaze upwards.

“Don’t look,” she warned him again.

The nearest buildings were only a few dozen metres back from the inside of the wall, and the people of Mirasmas went about their lives as best they could. With so many Soldiers packed into the city, patrols had been tripled and every face she saw was tight with anxiety. Even the commoners were smart enough not to turn their faces to the sky, but it was clear the constant war of magick was taking a toll.

Except, perhaps, on that woman?

In the middle of the main road leading from the gate to the palace, a single figure stood, draped in a black cloak, her features hidden beneath the cowl.

The moment Margerie saw her, the strange woman started forward, drawing closer to the gate. Margerie frowned and waited, but she showed no signs of stepping aside. Finally, once she stepped onto the outer road that ran inside the wall, the lieutenant stepped out.

“I’m sorry, citizen,” she said, holding up a hand. “You may not approach the gate during the siege. Step back.”

A few more steps forward, then the strange woman came to a halt. When she looked up, Margerie’s breath caught in her throat.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” the woman said. “I wouldn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.”

She bowed lightly, then turned and walked away.

“Holy shit,” Roald breathed with awe. “I don’t think I’ve seen a more attractive woman in all my life. I feel like she just snatched my soul.”

“Shut up,” Margerie said, though she could hardly disagree.

Such pale skin, almost alabaster, and flawless. But what had truly struck her were those eyes. As bright and red as fresh flowing blood.