Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
They left camp with nothing more than a few canteens of water, strips of dehydrated meat, their weapons, snowshoes, and the absorber.
If they defeated Vraethik, they’d be stranded in the forest at night.
It’d take too much time to take down and rebuild camp, so they decided taking the absorber was the best they could do.
They could either hike all the way back to camp once Vraethik was dead or find a nook to shelter in.
Either way, they’d need the absorber to have a chance of living through the cold night. Assuming they survived Vraethik.
Bone fragments littered the woods, shredding through bark and branches, spreading pools of necrotic blight through the ground. They hiked in heavy silence, cautiously avoiding the splintered God’s bones and the expanding curse.
Farther away from the Merathel Mountains, and with the slow, steady descent toward the plains, the snowpack decreased.
The woods widened, sunlight slanting between blackened oak branches, melting away more of the ice.
Soon, they removed their snowshoes, since although a light layer of snow remained, the shoes became more of a hindrance as it diminished.
They hiked in heavy silence, dread sitting low in Cerise’s gut, abolishing all thought except for the battle that lay ahead of her.
With each step, her knee popped, a sharp ache still stinging through the joint.
The sun shifted overhead, her leg growing stonier, jaw clenched to shove down the pain.
Zyrdriel’s Mercy staved off the edge of discomfort, but it persisted.
And she could not afford to rest yet. Not with the zap of necromantic lightning reforming Azkanix’s body getting louder as they neared.
Not with the thinning forest revealing the sickly green glow around his rib bone.
Cerise and the prince stopped at the last vestige of forest, a humming throb pulsing in her leg, cascading from the knee up to her hip and down to her ankle.
She stared out at where the old trees bowed to the young, the wilted, cursed saplings dotting the forest edge before melding with the plains.
What was once likely fertile land lush with knee-high grass that swayed in gentle breezes now sat smothered by frost and snow.
The necrosis around Azkanix’s towering bone filtered through the white plains, amplifying the blight’s blinding brightness.
There, at the edge of the glistening necrosis, stood the horrid necromancer himself, ragged cloak and tattered clothes billowing in the wind created from his magic.
Staff raised, pulses of that same puke-purple lightning ignited from the gemstone and shot toward the rib, mixing with the other twirling sparks around it, materializing undead muscle and ligament.
Crackles of thunder followed the pulse of zapping magic, the terrible booms thrumming in Cerise’s body.
As the magic reverberated up the arched, fractured bone, it coalesced at the highest point.
It formed into a writhing mass of dripping black and violet sparks, dangling off the spliced pointed bone tip like an icicle.
With each new thrum of energy, the mass bulged and expanded.
No, it pulsed.
Chills, unrelated to the eternal winter, swept through Cerise’s body.
Vraethik was reforming Azkanix’s cruel, undead heart. How long would it take to fully grow? Would his fully created heart instantly reform his entire being, erupting into existence as abruptly as his bones shattered?
The heart couldn’t have been larger than she was. They still had some time. Just not much.
Cerise dropped her gaze back to the necromancer. The wretched lichboar, Threxilon, circled Vraethik, streaks of molten red and deathly green illuminating its thick, bristly body and horrendous tusks.
“It’s funny,” the prince said, twisting the spear he’d wedged upright into the ground. “I was so focused on finding him, I didn’t plan what I’d do once I did. Do we simply confront him? Try to lure him away?”
Cerise opened her mouth to respond just as Threxilon abruptly stopped, lifted its snout as if sniffing the air, then whipped its head in their direction.
Shit. So much for strategizing.
The lichboar bolted across the plains, its sudden charge snapping Vraethik’s focus away from the summoning.
Swinging Beloved into her hands and bracing into her battle stance, she said, “Kill Vraethik first. He’ll raise the lichboar again if we kill it, so there’s no point in fighting it until Vraethik’s dead.”
They stared at the dashing lichboar, hooves kicking up tufts of loose snow. Vraethik trailed behind it, a stern and eerie calm in his steps. Annoyed, perhaps, but unconcerned.
As if he’d already succeeded.
Oberon cleared his throat, expelling the slight quiver in his voice. “Ideas on how to kill Vraethik without getting maimed by the lichboar?”
One of them had to engage the pair so the other could kill Vraethik.
The prince had never fought in real battle before.
He’d been trained in how to use different weapons but fighting in the training grounds was nothing like the battlefield.
And the living were much more analytical in their battle tactics than the undead, who were ruled by chaos and fearlessness, knowing there’d be an unholy way to resurrect them.
But Cerise, she knew the ways of necromancers and their familiars. How to weave her body, parry and thrust with Beloved, amidst numerous enemies who hurt without thought.
“I’ll distract them,” she said. “Try to create an opening for you to kill Vraethik. Stay back and remain as hidden as possible.”
She darted forward, a bolt of pain shooting through her leg as her knee cracked in the sudden movement.
“Cerise, wait—” Oberon shouted behind her, but she ignored him.
He had his orders.
Gaze pinpointing on her approaching enemies, her battle fury rose, numbing the aches and agonies that threatened to immobilize her.
Cerise’s heart drummed in her ears, the brittle wind sliced against her exposed cheeks and fingers, and Beloved’s sharp blades glinted in the light, ready to shed necromancer blood.
A grin tugged the corners of her lips. Though she did not relish her time in the Undead Wars, this sensation—almost a meditation—was long missed.
When the world and her mind hushed, and there was only the fight before her, the evil that needed vanquishing.
Fog puffed from Threxilon’s ragged, huffing snout and Vraethik’s stunted, pockmarked nose.
An image of them lifeless, no bursts of breath from their forms, flitted through Cerise’s mind, followed by the pleasant sense of relief and victory. Her grin widened as her grip tightened on Beloved, ready to deliver those killing blows.
The ground erupted before her and she came to a stumbling halt, throwing her arms up to shield her face from the rain of dirt and snow.
The prince shouted in the distance, but she couldn’t understand his words. Heavy thuds cascaded around her, the earth fissuring in both directions as buried layers geysered above ground. Clumps of soil, snowdrift, and long, fragile rocks pelted her arms and thunked to the frozen earth.
No, those weren’t rocks.
Through the crack in her arms, she saw those weighty pieces for what they truly were.
Bones.
She leapt backward, the plains now a fresh graveyard, littered with broken bones and upturned dirt. Footsteps thundered behind her and she grit her teeth at the prince’s idiotic disobedience.
Vraethik raised his arms, the lichboar standing protectively at his side. Cerise kept a firm grip on Beloved, bracing herself for one more mad dash forward to stop Vraethik before he abused the bones.
She was too late, too slow. Or perhaps he was too powerful.
His magic, a wretched deep purple tinged with sickly green, burst from his staff, wrapping around the fragmented bones.
The magic thrummed in the air, lifting the forgotten bones and shaping them once more into dozens of human skeletons.
They dropped to their exposed feet, each bone kept in place by the threads of Vraethik’s necromancy, their gleaming white shapes outlined in purple and green.
The heat of rage flared brighter than ever in Cerise’s chest. This was why she hated necromancers.
Why she fought so hard to eradicate them from this world.
Allowed the war to wreck her body and mind.
And why Azkanix should never, ever be allowed to rise again.
These corpses of fallen soldiers may never find a proper burial, but they should at least be allowed to rest in peace.
Not pulled from their graves and forced to fight for their enemies.
She’d stop this now, one way or another. Even if it meant breaking her promise to Eirwen and never coming home.
Oberon stopped beside her with a harsh pant, catching his breath.
“I told you to stay hidden,” Cerise growled.
“I said I liked you telling me what to do, not that I’d always listen.”
Cerise shot him an unamused glare, but before she could retort, the shambling skeletons surged toward them.
Joints grinding and mandibles slack, they flailed their frosty, brittle forms forward.
Beyond the throng, Vraethik turned his back on them, returning to his summoning with Threxilon at his heels
Cerise clenched her jaw, Vraethik’s silhouette swallowed by the approaching mass of clicking and clacking bones, eager to rip out their eyes and devour their living flesh.
The horde fell upon them, frozen phalanges thrashing, snapping their aged, decayed teeth.