I felt like a Frost Giant; the zombies left a gap in front for me to see through, but aside from that the dome was a solid object, which must have weighed even more than a Jotunn, even with the scant flesh the undead carried on their frames. If any soldiers tried to get to us, we simply steamrolled on, bowling them over and trampling them beneath our feet. Spear thrusts, axe cuts, sword slashes—nothing could get through the wall of bodies.
Now my makeshift protection had successfully resisted some hits, I felt like I had taken the upper hand. A streak of blood lighting slammed into the pile of zombies, and I was showered with viscera, blood, and torn-up body parts as those directly above me exploded—but I laughed and called up more zombies to patch the hole. I hadn’t even been caused a minor discomfort by the blood storm’s latest attack.
“That’s right, Blood God,” I yelled from within the safety of my dome, “I’m laughing at you, you little prick! Your blood storm can’t do shit against the power of Death!”
Another strike of blood lightning smashed into my dome, blowing up more zombies, but again I was unhurt, and again I called in more zombies to patch up the wall. The entrance to the temple was now only fifty yards ahead. More of my uncle’s soldiers were racing in to try to stop us from getting there, but with the momentum we’d built up, I blasted through all of them, trampling them with my running zombie dome.
One last lightning strike hit the dome, blowing a few zombies to pieces, but this time I didn’t patch up the hole; I was almost there. I commanded the zombie dome to open up more space at the front, before I ducked out of the dome and raced through the doors. As soon as I was in, I disbanded the dome and formed it into a solid wall of bodies now, preventing any of my uncle’s soldiers getting into the temple. They understood right away; they were getting the hang of playing the role of building material.
I paused to catch my breath before entering the inner sanctum of the temple. The temple appeared to be arranged in a series of concentric circles, with only one entrance to each next circle. The first door I came to wasn’t guarded, so I slipped inside, my kusarigama in one hand and my Bone Bow in the other.
I ran around the curved passage, seeking out the next door, when two of my uncle’s robed oblates sprang out from behind a pillar, their hands charged with red lightning. Neither had a chance to even raise their hands; less than a second after they’d jumped out, both were toppling to the ground with huge holes ripped through their torsos, courtesy of my Bone Bow.
I skidded to a halt before going through the next door as another idea popped into my head. These oblates were able to channel powerful Blood magic when they were alive—so why wouldn’t they be able to channel equally powerful Death magic when they were undead?
“Fuck you, Rodrick,” I growled. “You trained these servile fuckers to use their Blood magic to take me down—but now I’m gonna use your own little buttlickers against you. You and your living oblates are about to suck on some Death magic!”
Chapter Thirty-Three
I raised the dead oblates as zombies, projected my mind into them, and immediately felt the potential for channeling power within each of them. Keeping each oblate’s undead mind linked to mine, I blasted myself down through the soil below the temple, seeking out the Death magic of this place; as expected, there was plenty of it. But there was more; there was a lingering rage, a furious desire for vengeance against those who had murdered them, which made the adjacent Death magic tremendously powerful. It was festering in the bones of the dead, and I linked it to the cold, black potency of the Death magic, then hauled that magic up and projected it into the undead bodies of my zombie oblates. They raised their hands, but the energy crackling around them was no longer red—it was black.
I rubbed my hands with pride and glee. I couldn’t wait to see the look on my uncle’s face when his own oblates came at him, blasting out Death lightning. I knew that there would be more oblates waiting to attack near the next door, so I kept my undead oblates in front of me as I ran around the curved passageway, searching for the next door.
Sure enough, more oblates jumped out from behind pillars—only this time there were four of them instead of two. I pumped two full of holes with my Bone Bow before they could launch their blood lightning strikes at me; as for the others, I let my undead oblates deal with them. I watched, fascinated, as black lightning—so dark that it seemed to suck in all of the light around it—blasted out from my zombie oblates’ hands, meeting the red lightning that the living oblates blasted back. The red lightning streaks crashed into the black ones with a boom that shook the walls of the temple and rained down dust on our heads. The living oblates’ faces were twisted grimaces, their jaws clenched with effort—but as hard as they tried, they could not push my zombies’ black lightning back, and the black lighting surged closer and closer to them, burning away the red lightning; the power of Death was winning. I remembered what Friya had said, about Blood magic being particularly susceptible to both Death magic and Cold magic. I might not have been wearing my Cold-enchanted plate
