used the moment’s distraction, stepped forward, and plunged the sword into her heart.
A wailing and hissing sound was heard as she vanished, her body melting into ash. The blood-red cloak wrapped around her floated to the ground.
Half the undead soldiers and horses collapsed around them. Bones clacked against bones, wilting on the sand. The sky cleared. Sunlight rained down on the dark army.
Talis fell to his knees, dizzy from the exertion, blinded by the sudden outpouring of light.
“What do we do now?” Rikar yelled, and stared at the glowering faces of the other two necromancers.
Talis laughed madly. He’d killed a necromancer and it felt amazing. Not some wild animal in the swamplands. The most feared opponent on the battlefield. A Jiserian necromancer.
After a brief moment of sunlight, the darkness rained down once again. This time it came with a fog so thick it suffocated all visibility. Talis heard a moan that sounded like a soldier being struck. Mara screamed. The sound of steel shattering bone and armor. A deep, booming roar that echoed over the sand, as if the fog itself was the source.
Turning, he charged through the mist towards Mara’s voice, trying to protect her. Out in the edge of the fog, Talis noticed Rikar talking with a shadowy figure. He turned his head towards Talis, as if surprised at being found. The figure disappeared into the fog. Rikar frowned at Talis. What was Rikar doing?
Soon four undead warriors strode towards Talis, leering at him, weapons raised. The fog lifted, and Talis could see they were beaten. Rikar charged at the undead, slicing off a leg and kicking another over. Talis joined in, severing the other two in half.
But the necromancers, hovering fifty feet off the ground, shot a stream of grey and black particles towards the slain undead, causing them to reassemble back to life. The undead warriors shook their fists above their heads and glowered at Talis. Looking around, Talis could see they’d lost. Almost every soldier from the party had been slain or beaten down. The undead surrounded them and the necromancers floated down to gloat over their victory.
“We can’t die like this,” Talis said, edging close to Rikar.
“Dying is for quitters,” Rikar said, and raised a ruby to his lips. He whispered a name, a name that Talis could barely hear, a name that sounded familiar, like from his nightmares. Aurellia… The ruby glowed red and bits of silver shimmered inside.
Instantly, it was dark again, so dark, Talis couldn’t see his hands.
A rumbling sound, as if millions of bison charged across a plain. Then a whooshing sound, like when the wind from a storm races through the trees. Brilliant lights pierced the darkness, forming a magical portal, filled with shadows and light.
An ancient man, face distorted and leathered, wearing a black hooded robe, stepped through the portal and glanced around, chuckling to himself like he knew some secret joke. He rammed his ruby-tipped staff into the sand. An explosion of red and orange and silver light shot out in all directions and vaporized the undead warriors and horses.
“Be banished to eternal night,” he said, his voice slow and slurred, and he aimed his staff at the bald necromancer, and pointed a finger at the other. A rift appeared in the sky and moans and screams of agony from a million dead souls cried out from that rift, as if the sound came from the torments of the Underworld.
The necromancers were pulled (or rather the darkness enveloped them) into the rift and they fought and shrieked against the force, but in the end lost the struggle.
And then the shadow portal came to the old man, rushed over him, and consumed him, until he too disappeared.
The air was clear. The sun was strong. The wind, cold from the north.
12. THE NORTHLANDS
After the dust settled, Talis felt the cold dew falling, sending a chill under his skin. He’d searched through the bodies, bones and fetid flesh and soldiers still dying, trying to find Mara and Nikulo. Rikar helped, illuminating the night with a shimmering orb, turning over bodies, revealing the hideous faces of undead and former living alike. Finally, a trembling lump lifted itself up, a dirtied face staring around in horror at the destruction.
It was Mara! Talis felt a wave of relief and joy washing over him like a warm summer rain.
“I was so worried…I’d thought you were killed,” Talis said. “Thank the gods you survived.”
“What are you doing here?” Rikar eyes went wide.
“You think I was going to let you guys go off on an adventure by yourselves?”
“This is not some kind of game…you could have been killed,” Rikar said. “And your family is probably worried sick about you…”
Mara scoffed. “Forget about them… They want me to marry some old pig.” She glanced around at all the undead bones lying around. “When they attacked I knew it was best to pretend I was dead. They went right after the soldiers and ignored me.”
“You did the right thing.” Talis brushed the sand off her clothes.
“Nikulo is probably shivering in his boots, somewhere around here.” Rikar squinted, peering out north.
“He was close to me,” Mara said, “before Talis attacked…”
“Let’s find Nikulo and whatever supplies we’ll need.” Talis rummaged around, checking the bodies for Nikulo. Where were the horses? All their packs, their food and supplies. Even if the threat of attack were over, they’d die out here in the desert without a way out and means to survive.
Rikar whistled, calling Talis back to where he was searching with Mara. Mounted on horseback, Nikulo grinned in his cocky way, holding the reins of a second horse.
“Couldn’t let these two run off,” Nikulo said. “I tried to find others…” He stopped when he noticed Mara. “You little she-devil! Who let you come along?”
Mara smiled, flushing a bit. “Nice to see you too.”
Nikulo chuckled, and glanced at Talis. “You look terrible, like something sat on your face.”
“Well, what happened to you?” Rikar swaggered over to Nikulo’s horse. “Were you around for the attack?”
“I was trying to stay alive, crawling away just the moment they attacked.”
Rikar scanned the northern horizon. “Looks like we’re on our own now, two horses, a few packs, some water, and how many days riding north until we-”
“Get out of this hellhole?” Nikulo frowned. “Two…maybe three days riding. I grabbed this horse and managed to track down the second…luckily the horses came to me…this one licked me…”
“North? Why would we continue on? The party is demolished…shouldn’t we return to Naru?” Talis said.
“And give up?” Rikar sheathed his sword. “I think not. We have the map in your possession. The Elders said that the champion commanded you to go…”
“I’m not saying give up, I’m saying return to Naru and resupply.”
“If one Jiserian raiding party found us so easily, what’s to say another one won’t again if we return?”
“Rikar has a point,” Mara said. “We’re lucky we’re alive. I say we keep going on.”
Of course Mara wanted to keep going on, if she went back to Naru, her parents would kill her. And it wasn’t luck, it was whoever Rikar had called…he saved them, this Aurellia. Who was he, anyways?
“Did you find any other survivors?” Nikulo said.
Rikar frowned. “I’m tired of dead bodies. I went through plenty looking for you and Mara.”
“I’m going to look…in case there is someone I can heal,” Nikulo said.
Talis rummaged through the mess, trying to find anything useful for the trip. Most of the horses had fled after the attack. Soldiers from his father’s armory-who he’d barely known-lying dead on the sand. There were too many to bury.
“Fire will purify the bodies,” Rikar said, as if reading his thoughts.
“Wait for Nikulo to check for any survivors.” Mara’s face held a dark grimace.
As the eastern horizon brightened, awash in the faintest bit of crimson and cobalt, Talis rose to meet Nikulo as he waddled forward. His shoulders sank with a morbid heaviness, as if his grim job had come up fruitless.
