“Here’s a little taste of freedom, you sorry son of a bitch,” I whispered as I lined him up in the sights of the crossbow. “It’s gonna sting a little, but you’ll thank me later.”
I squeezed the trigger and watched the flimsy bolt arc through the night air. A second or two later, it slammed into the conscript’s unarmored arm. A jolt of energy ripped through me the moment the projectile pierced his flesh; the connection had been established. He yelped with pain and swatted at his arm, thinking he’d been stung by a wasp. When he saw the little crossbow bolt embedded in his arm, though, he chuckled and pulled it out.
“Hey, lads!” he said to a group of fellow conscripts nearby. The enchantment I’d placed on him meant I could hear through his ears. “They must be getting really desperate behind the walls of Brakith. They just shot at me with one of those child’s crossbows!”
“Praise the gods,” another muttered sourly. “Hopefully that means these Church bastards will let us go home soon. If I don’t get back to my field in the next two weeks, the crops will rot and my family will starve over winter!”
I now took control of the first conscript’s body. I felt a surge of alarm and fear tear through him as my spirit entered him, but his will was war too feeble and weak to contend with mine.
“Fuck Elandriel and the Church of Light!” I yelled via the conscript. “They’re not only starving the people in this city; they’re going to starve all of us too because they’re keeping us away from our fields and preventing us from harvesting our crops! Why are we even here? I don’t have no quarrel with the people of Brakith, they never did anything to us.”
“Fuckin’ right mate, fuckin’ right!” another conscript shouted. “Fuck this soldiering business. We’re not even getting paid for this or compensated in any way for the crops we’re losing. The Church isn’t even pretending to care about us anymore. They’ve made their contempt for us and our families clear enough, haven’t they, lads?”
“They don’t give a fuck about our lives, boys!” I made the first conscript yell. “We’re nothing but arrow fodder for them. See how they make us camp near the city walls, where all the arrows and crossbow bolts fall, while all the commanders and regular Church crusaders are camped at the back, out of range! Fuck them! They’re our enemies, not the people of Brakith. They’re just trying to defend their home, which the fucking Church is attacking out of spite!”
“Aye!” a bunch of them roared, now that the rebellion was gathering steam.
“What’s this stupid fight about anyway?” a man shouted. “Elandriel says it’s about the crimes of Lord Chauzec, but I haven’t seen any evidence that Lord Chauzec did anything wrong. He and the Temple of Necrosis ridded the land of many evils that the Church did nothing about. But now we’re being forced to fight them. Bah, fuck this!”
“These cowards are forcing us to do their dirty work,” I yelled, barely even having to exert much control over the conscript now, since he too was getting caught up in the spirit of the mutiny, “but there’s way more of us than there are of them … and unlike when they came into our villages and rounded us up and forced us at sword point to join this army, we’ve got weapons and armor now. We weren’t able to resist them then, but we are now!”
I pulled my spirit out of the conscript; I’d started enough of a fire there, and it was spreading like an inferno across a dry field. Rollar and I watched with a growing sense of satisfaction as the contagion spread.
“Come on,” I said, “let’s move on to another section. I’ve got a lot more of these enchanted bolts to shoot, and a full-scale army mutiny to foment.”
After an hour, I’d been around the entire length of the city walls and had infected Church of Light conscripts with my contagion in all sections of the army. By this time, Church commanders had gotten wind of what was going on, since large masses of conscripts were yelling and getting into a rebellious mood, and I could see them assembling squadrons of veteran troops to put down these mutinies before they had the chance to break out on a massive scale.
Now, while the Church troops were squabbling among themselves and the commanders were distracted by the sudden and alarming outbreak of a potential full-scale revolt, it would be the perfect time to attack. I returned to the castle to address my party, who were all armored up and ready for battle.
“The Battle of Brakith started when Elandriel and his asshole commanders decided to attack and attempt to destroy my city,” I said to them, “and it’s been intensifying ever since they invaded. But up until now, it’s been a one-sided affair, with my guards and townsfolk, all heavily outnumbered, doing what they can to defend this city against the relentless attacks by the Church. But now, my friends, I’ve turned the tables on those who would destroy me and everything associated with me. I’ve started a mutiny within the Church of Light Army. When we open the gates and charge out of this, my living zombie moles in the Church Army will turn their weapons on their sergeants and commanders. They think they’ve got us outnumbered a hundred to one, but half of their army is about to turn against them!”
“What a deliciously wicked plan, Vance!” Isu remarked, her pale eyes gleaming in the bright moonlight. Her hands were glowing yellow-green, ready to unleash clouds of virulently acidic mist that would melt men’s faces off their skulls.
“It’s a plan that’s going to crush the core of the Church Army,”
