Still, I had to get my hands on the Cloak of Changing. If I could add a large squadron of undead Frost Giants to my army in the process, then it was definitely worth the risk.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Still atop Fang’s saddle, I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath, and focused my mind and spirit. This task would require enormous concentration and every ounce of Death magic I possessed. My spirit stepped out of my body, and I felt a black thread, sticky like spider silk, beginning to uncoil from each of my palms. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was doing this, but I knew that the thread was the method of resurrecting multiple beings simultaneously. My body stood still, hovering in a state that was somewhere between life and death. My spirit, connected to my body via a powerful, stretchy thread, walked among the dead Frost Giants. As I passed each corpse, I pressed my palm onto their huge chests, just over their hearts. The black thread stuck there and continued to unravel from my palms, which contained a seemingly infinite supply.
Soon, all of the corpses were connected to each other by a web of black thread. In turn, this thread was connected to my palms. I could also feel it running up my arms, inside them like a vein connected to my heart. I looked down at saw that my heart was glowing like a blacksmith’s forge, hot and white in the center of my chest. I knew that to raise all of these Jotunn simultaneously, I would have to blast a potent charge of energy out from my heart into theirs. But would it be so potent that it would entirely extinguish the fire of life that was glowing in my heart? If this happened, it would all be over. There would be no coming back from that. I’d be just as dead as the corpses to which my network of black thread was now connected.
It was a risk I had to take. I had to trust my instincts and my powers. They hadn’t let me down yet.
“All right, motherfuckers,” I whispered, “it’s now or never. Dead Jotunn warriors, you will rise from the grave and serve me, Vance Chauzec, your new master!”
I unleashed a charge of heat and energy from my glowing heart. The light and fire blasted out through the black threads at lightning speed, jumping along the complex strands of the web. It kept flowing out of my heart, as if my heart had been a full wineskin that I’d just stabbed with a dagger. It poured, and there was no way to patch the leak. Now that I’d started this process, there would be no stopping it. If I ran out of light and heat before the last Jotunn warrior was resurrected, that would be the end for me.
“Rise, you motherfuckers, rise!” I gritted my teeth through the depleting sensation, refusing to let go.
Out on the battlefield, the glazed-over eyes of the dead Jotunn started to glow a bright yellow-green. I could see—as if their bodies had suddenly become partially transparent—the congealing blood in their veins turning from dark crimson to that same yellow-green hue, becoming the liquid that would turn them from corpses into undead, undead who served me unfailingly.
One by one, the limbs of the huge dead giants started to twitch and jerk. Soon, they were staggering to their feet, massive limbs filled with new strength, faces wearing the blank, emotionless expressions of zombies.
It was working, but it was also killing me. Heat and light continued to gush furiously out of my heart into the black web. While more Jotunn were rising from the grave, many of them still lay dead on the ground. A lot of my energy would still be needed to resurrect them all.
I growled against the growing weakness and sense of debilitation as my heart grew ever dimmer and my pulse slowed. When only a few corpse were left, I could barely stay on my feet, even in spirit form. My every limb was filled with heavy lead, dragging me down, as if my strength was being drained from my body like blood from a thousand cuts. A darkness clouded my vision, everything melting into the blackness of this growing shadow.
It was too much. I’d been too ambitious, and now that ambition was going to kill me. The glow in my heart reduced to a barely perceptible shimmer, so dim that it was almost nonexistent. I dropped to my knees as the last of my energy dripped out of my heart. Before I would have collapsed completely, the eyes of the final dead Frost Giant illuminated with a yellow-green glow, and he rose to his feet.
It was done.
It had almost killed me, but it was done.
The black spider-silk threads exploded into vapor and were gone. Like a loosed crossbow bolt, my spirit was hurled back into my body. I found the same crushing weakness, and it was all I could do to remain upright in Fang’s saddle. I could barely breathe, let alone talk, but I was still alive. I was stronger than I knew.
“I could never have done what you just did, not at my most powerful as a goddess,” Isu murmured in awe. “You are a stronger Death deity than I ever was.”
Elyse rushed to me on her horse, wearing a look of concern. She jumped onto Fang’s back behind me and helped support me so that I didn’t fall out of the saddle. She pressed a wineskin to my lips.
“Drink, Vance, drink!” she instructed, her tone anxious.
I managed to part my lips and allowed the liquid to fill my mouth. My mouth was suddenly on fire with the furious vigor of Yorish brandy. I had no option but to gulp it down and
