Then there was another problem to deal with. Thousands of miles away, across harsh and rugged terrain, lay Brakith. My city and my people were under siege by the biggest army ever assembled by the Church of Light. Of course, this was all going on hearsay, but it seemed like exactly what Elandriel would have done. After all, he’d called up a crusade against me before I left for Yeng. It only made sense that he would ramp up his efforts with his assumed victory so near. Furthermore, he was one sly, sneaky fucker. He knew that by assaulting Brakith, he would keep me away from Luminescent Spires since I’d be occupied there.
Splitting my force would weaken us—something else that Elandriel could exploit. But if we focused all our strength on either relieving the Siege of Brakith or attacking the Blood Pyramid beneath Luminescent Spires, I would lose something big. If I went to Brakith, I would lose the opportunity to defeat the Blood God and the Demogorgon before they grew too powerful. If I went straight to Luminescent Spires with the entirety of my forces? Brakith would almost certainly be taken, and all my loyal subjects and friends there would die horrible deaths.
There had to be another way.
Elandriel no doubt thought he had me in checkmate. He might even be right. Was there some way I could solve both problems without suffering a massive loss in either area?
Before I did anything drastic, though, I needed to ensure that the siege and the attack on Brakith was as dire as rumors had made it out to be.
Thankfully, there was a way for me to do exactly that. I had just remembered that I’d given Cranton, the First Priest of the Temple of Necrosis, a few skeletons to use as bodyguards. Being a weedy, uncoordinated mouse of a man, he needed all the help he could get when it came to defending himself. All I had to do was seek out those skeletons and take a peek at the world through their eyes. My powers had increased exponentially since I’d first become a necromancer—and then a Death God—so I hoped I could reach Cranton’s undead minions wherever they may be found.
I closed my eyes and focused on the black Death threads that connected me to all of my undead creature, from Sarge, the very first skeleton I’d created—who was being dragged across the bottom of the sea, along with the vast majority of my undead army—all the way to the wyrm, my most recent addition. There were tens of thousands of threads, but I found that by putting thoughts of Cranton into my head, I was able to pick out those of his skeleton bodyguards.
Once I’d located these, I chose one skeleton and blasted a part of my spirit across time and space into its skull. I opened my eyes and peered around me, seeing the world through the undead minion’s eyes.
I was across the continent, in Brakith, standing on the ramparts of the city walls. My bony hands gripped a recurve bow and aimed a strung arrow at a huge sea of Church of Light troops. They had completely surrounded the city. Hundreds of catapults and trebuchets were busy launching boulders and flaming projectiles at the fortified walls.
Still in the skeleton’s body, I angrily loosed an arrow, skewering a fat Church soldier through his throat. Feeling at least a little satisfied, I turned around to look at the city of Brakith behind me.
A stab of both anger and sadness was thrust through my belly as I took in the sight of the city. The buildings and the castle had taken a pounding from the barrage of the catapults and trebuchets. Brakith’s citizens were huddled behind walls in makeshift shelters, looking scared and thin; food was obviously running low. Many of my soldiers lay dead, piled up in hastily dug mass graves. The situation was even worse than I could have imagined, and I needed to send support there right away.
However, I couldn’t delay my mission to Luminescent Spires; Elandriel, the Blood God and the Demogorgon were growing stronger by the day, possibly even by the hour, and every moment I gave them was a chance of ultimate victory I was taking from myself.
I pulled my spirit from the skeleton and returned to my body. With this conundrum on my mind, I sat down and thought deeply. I wanted to lead the counterattack against the Church of Light army myself. I wanted to personally wipe the fuckers out, drive them from Brakith with such force that no Church army would ever be assembled again. But that would mean having to travel to Brakith.
Everyone had taken a break to eat lunch soon after we had surfaced. They were still eating and resting, but Isu was done, so I took her aside to pick her brain.
“You’re perturbed, Vance, I can see it in your eyes,” she said. “It’s not an expression I’m accustomed to seeing on that handsome face of yours.”
“Elandriel has me on my back foot,” I said. “I need to figure a few things. Since you were the Goddess of Death for such a long time, I’m hoping you’re able to answer this question. Is it possible for me to control a living person the way I can control my undead creatures?”
“As powerful as you are as the God of Death, Vance, you cannot control any living thing like a puppet,” she answered. “Not even a mouse. If you want that sort of control over a living creature, the only way to do it is to kill it, and resurrect its corpse as one of your undead creatures. There is no other way.”
I frowned. “I was hoping there would be a way to do this without having to kill him…”
“Kill who?”
“The actor in Brakith, the one who worked for my uncle for a while,” I answered.
A knowing smile came across Isu’s pale
