“Is it magic?”
“I don’t believe so. We enjarta create bombs with the gray powder by filling a segment of bamboo with it. Then, we use a fuse to delay the explosion long enough for us to throw it. It’s useful for dealing with close-packed enemy troops. One of these bombs can kill many of them at once.”
“Interesting. Do you know how to make the powder?”
“I don’t, unfortunately. It’s a secret known only by the most elite Yengish alchemists, a secret that is heavily guarded.”
“You didn’t bring any with you from Yeng?”
“The powder degrades quickly. It loses its explosive ability mere days after its manufacture.”
I sure as hell could use something like that, but it didn’t seem that it would be possible to bring such a substance from Yeng. It would become inert long before it crossed the ocean that separated the country from Prand. Such a substance would definitely help in my dreams of having the world’s mightiest undead army, but it was a consideration for later.
For now, I’d been given an idea. A memory from my childhood popped into my mind. An old story about a powerful necromancer who was able to make corpses explode. Well, I’d been a necromancer, and now, I was the ultimate necromancer, the God of Death, so surely some sort of corpse explosion spell would be well within the scope of possibility for me.
Abruptly, I swept Rami up in my arms and planted a huge kiss on her lips. She gasped. Then, her lips parted and her eager tongue darted into my mouth. I almost forgot why I’d kissed her, lost in the searing passion for a moment, slipping my fingers through her silky black hair and clamping my free hand on her firm round ass as our tongues danced.
I let go of her and smiled. “Let’s resume this later. I have to go on a little journey.”
Before I could close my eyes, I caught sight of Elyse staring at me. She blushed a little before she looked away. I’d probably have to speak with her about Rami at some point, but now wasn’t the time.
I shut my eyes and extended my soul outward with a flick of my will. This time, it was a lot easier to get to the black plane. As I approached the huge gray tree, I saw the little sapling that represented Cranton’s powers. It was looking healthy and strong, something I took as a sign that my First Priest was sticking to his word and staying off the greenfoil.
Returning my attention to my tree, I noticed that some of the mist surrounding one of the branches was thinning. To perform the now-familiar ritual, I stabbed Grave Oath into the trunk, and once again felt the souls pulsing out of it into the tree. As my dagger emptied and the tree filled, the fog around the lowest of the cloud-covered branches dissipated.
Hanging from it like an ethereal fruit bunch was a glowing image of an exploding corpse. Bone shards and meat and viscera and blood were spraying everywhere, pushed outward by a fireball explosion. The fire, however, was no ordinary blaze. The flames were the same yellow-green tone as Fang’s eyes.
Eager to obtain this new skill, I clambered up the tree and snatched it from the branch. A jolt ripped through my body, and destructive energy crackled in my fingertips. I gritted my teeth at the near-overwhelming pain, and it soon subsided, giving way before the excitement of testing this new power.
In a flash, I was back in my body, in the clearing among dozens of corpses.
Rami smiled at me. “You have returned. Much faster this time.”
“I’m getting better,” I said.
“Ugh,” Elyse said as she staggered into the clearing. “Thank the Lord of Light that foul-smelling brute is gone. Did you see him eat that soldier’s brains? And the foul reek of him!”
I had to suppress an amused smile. “Well, he’s gone for now. But Drok is going to be joining our party.”
Elyse stared at me for a few moments as if I’d just told her that her mother was a cave troll and that the sky was about to collapse on our heads and kill us all.
“He has some part to play in my fate,” I explained. “He was sent to find me, and the wise woman of his tribe dreamed about me and the Blood God. The Auras are dropping some pretty hefty hints at my feet. I’d be a fool to ignore them.”
“By the Lord,” she murmured, “my poor nose. I thought the zombies were bad. Now, I have to deal with yet another rancorous odor.”
“I figure we’ll force him to wash at some point.”
“Thank you.” She sighed. “Now, are you going to raise these skeletons and continue with our journey? I suppose you’ll have to send these ones away, to join the others on foot.”
“Actually, I won’t be raising all of these corpses as skeletons. I’ve gained a new ability.” I smiled at the corpses as the image of detonating them appeared in my mind. “‘Always test your weapons before you need them in battle,’ is what my father used to say.”
“Oh? Is it more undead?” Elyse seemed genuinely interested, a much different attitude than when we’d first met.
“Watch this,” I said.
I didn’t know how powerful the explosion was going to be, so I aimed at a soldier’s corpse that was at the far end of the clearing, with nobody near it. Energy in my fingertips appeared and grew rapidly, as if I’d dipped my fingers into boiling oil, but the heat wasn’t painful. It felt as if an invisible thread had appeared, stretching from my fingertips to the corpse. In my mind’s eye, the corpse appeared like a vat full of highly flammable oil, waiting for a spark, hungering for a lick of flame to set it ablaze.
There was only one thing left to do now: transfer the energy.
I
