XXXI

  Dead Hunt II

  ‘…Malakai!’ he heard Sarah calling after him as he dashed across the field.

  I’m stupid, he thought. Running out into danger wouldn’t make him a better leader. But turning back on his decision wasn’t an option; the undead at the boy’s side was stirring.

  Malakai’s approach and the blade in his hand didn’t go unnoticed.

  The driver screamed. ‘Hey, you, help cut—’

  Malakai ran past. Now the boy’s eyes went wide as the captain charged him. He held the small knife he was using to cut the ropes in front of him and prepared to strike in a pose sorrier than a novice would pull. The guard captain swerved around him. Sword scraping over the floor, Malakai’s blade cut through the neck of the rising dead, its arm falling back on the ground.

  The boy yelped and jumped away. Malakai paid him no mind—a severed head didn’t stop the dead. He turned to the ropes, and cut through all of them in one stroke. The wagon burst into motion. Hurrying, Malakai dragged the horrified kid by the scruff of the neck, threw him inside the wagon, then jumped in himself—

  His foot was yanked from underneath him as he pushed off, and Malakai nearly bust his teeth on the rear of the wagon, but he broke his fall and saved himself. The grip hooked onto his ankle was cold and dead. Malakai slashed backwards without looking, and the undead’s hand severed at the wrist. The captain caught up to the wagon and leaped over the trunk.

  ‘Follow the others!’ Malakai yelled.

  The driver didn’t need to be told twice.

  Cold wind whipped against his skin and cooled him off. Malakai dared a glance backwards. The bandits which had not gotten on the caravan were all dead. Standing in the middle of the sea of corpses was Radi, her dark skin, which merged with the night, a stark contrast against the icy hue radiating from her. She was looking directly at him. Cold didn’t begin to describe it. Her gaze came from another plane, one that was perhaps not unlike the frozen wastes south of their lands.

  The cursed idol in her hand dangled, and the air rippled with a vibration that thudded like a heart. For an instant, the bodies in the snow mirrored the pulse. Malakai’s breath froze. Two dozen bandits rose, screaming terror at the sky. Their grey heads turned as one to the fleeing caravans, every remaining bandit and member looking back in abject horror.

  ‘Fa—faster!’ someone yelled at the top of their lungs.

  The dead were on the hunt.

  Dense mist poured from underneath Wraith’s whispering cloak.

  The demon leapt back onto the roof of a building, avoiding contact with the fog at all costs. She’d tried touching it before, and the manoeuvre had cost her her limb. Luckily for her, she could regenerate. Not so fortunate for the demon was what I did next. The edges of Wraith’s body blurred, becoming one with the mist. I dissolved completely, vanishing from sight. The demon blindly struck behind her, predicting that’s where I would show up, as I had before. Instead, the mist congealed in front of her, my fist materialising from thin air to pummel her. She launched off the roof and crashed back into the earth.

  The force of the blow made her rebound off the ground. I phased, appearing at her side before she could touch the floor again, and my heel slammed into her stomach. A small explosion erupted as she flew through the wall of a home.

  ‘Surely, that’s not all you got?’ I said.

  I walked through the dust and debris fogging up the side-entrance I had created in the house. The demon struggled to her knees and hands, the side of her stomach caved in from where my boot had planted. Her body glowed red from head to toe.

  ‘That was the last of your lifeblood, wasn’t it?’ I said.

  My head tilted to the side, where I sensed Radi creating the confusion and chaos I had ordered her to. Good. Malakai was escaping. It’d been a bit of a surprise when he jumped from the wagon to help the other bandits, then proceeded to behead one of my ghouls, but whatever floated his boat, I supposed. Though I did sense he was wounded. One of the ghouls had wounded and infected him. I’ll nip that in the bud. I didn’t want my guard captain turning undead.

  I had Radi activate her skill, Undead Horde, which raised every corpse in a ten-metre radius infected with death energy and turned them into ghouls. The ghouls raised with the ability wouldn’t last through the night. But they didn’t need to.

  Leisurely, I rotated back towards the demon. She was lying face up, her chest heaving up and down. Demons didn’t need to breathe, but instincts were trying to get her to do anything to force lifeblood into her body. Lifeblood that wasn’t available, for the sole remaining entities within the hamlet were corpses and the demon.

  My lips curved as I crouched at her side. ‘Say, I know you demons revive, but does your ego survive across iterations? Or do you return as some sort of copy?’

  The demon chuckled. ‘Don’t grow cocky…vermin. We’ve destroyed…your kind…before.’

  I snorted. ‘I’m quaking in my boots.’

  As my sentence ended, the demon dissolved into particles of dust. The core dissolved, too.

  [Timed Hidden Quest Completed: Stop the Summoning]

  {Skill points awarded: 5}

  Good. I could use that.

  I strolled towards my apprentice. Destroyed my kind before, huh? Necromancy was known in this world, so there had to be necromancers in our past. Were they all dead? Was my bloodline the last of the necromancers? And when had they destroyed us? All questions I would need to research.

  My apprentice was on her way back to the cellar where the night had started. The two ghouls bound to her service were with her.

  I motioned for one to come hither. My thumb ran over the summon’s face, where a patch of ice had taken the place of skin. Fascinating, I thought. An apprentice could, based on their strength, summon a number of ghouls from the beyond into their service, which didn’t expire with time and grew stronger as the apprentice levelled. My previous ghouls had been nothing but necromantic constructs, but those of the apprentice were a combination of death and frost. All my powers are, I thought. My squire and his steed had access to both elements, and so did Wraith. It wasn’t a coincidence. A deeper phenomenon was at play here, one that fuelled the joining…

  A concept. It must be. But what was it? The answer was on my lips but it escaped me.

  It will come, I thought.

  I tapped the ghoul twice on the cheek and made my way down into the cellar. Radi retook command of the ghoul and made it help the other in carrying the corpses of the women. From the connection between us, I could tell she was planning to offer the dead to me, for that was the etiquette amongst undead—the strongest ate first.

  ‘Feed yourself,’ I said. As a mage, she could cultivate, but absorbing death energy from a corpse was faster.

  The apprentice dug in without thinking twice. I leaned on a wall and watched as she slurped the death out and fed the remains to her ghouls. Should I call for the bandits at the castle? The apprentice or mystic I could create with their sorry talents would be equally as sorry—but merging them with Radi, who was a sorcerer in her own right, would work. It may even push the apprentice to the stage of a Fledgling, which would later turn into a Lich.

  A choice between quantity or quality—a swarm or a cornerstone, as my father would say. Easy choice. Swarms wouldn’t win me the war against demons.

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  I’d send the soldiers after creating my second squire—

  I quit manually animating Wraith’s body as the whole of my senses whirled upward. Something was standing outside the entrance to the house.

  Something powerful.

  I dematerialised the apprentice and stored the crystal, loathe to lose her in a battle that may be avoided, then made my way up.

  The entrance to the home wasn’t closed—who closed the door in a village of the dead?—so the silver moonlight expanded as I crested the stairs and my field of view widened. A translucent shape waited by the exit. It wore deep purple robes, for so far the translucency allowed colour, and was about the size of a man. That’s where the resemblance to humans stopped. The head of a bird jutted out from underneath the cowl. The face was sharp, the beak violet, its eyes oval, slanted, and burning in the shadows of the night. They followed my every movement as I neared, arms hidden within the fold of their robe.

  I stopped right outside the exit, making a show of studying the creature. The presence it exerted in the mana spectrum was one of a mirage. This was a spirit.

  ‘Honoured spirit,’ I said. ‘To what do I owe your visit?’

  The birdman remained silent. When I was beginning to think it didn’t understand my language, it spoke in a single, flowing sentence that seemed to pause the world.

  ‘Morgathis the Dread, the spirits of this land call upon our ancient pact.’

  My chest contracted with the uttering of the name, and my eyes went wide. I glanced down. Undead had no heartbeat, yet my heart was thundering. No, I thought. It wasn’t Wraith’s heart. My senses scattered across the network of dead, racing to their origin in a castle shrouded in fog, where I sensed inside my own chest. My heart was thundering, I realised with a start.

  I instantly shot back into Wraith and regarded the spirit.

  ‘Follow me,’ it said, and it was as if I was compelled to do so by the law of a god.

  Levitation made Leah less than a ghost or spectre as she stepped and left the lovebirds behind her. She was nothing at all. So it was no surprise the haze didn’t notice Leah tailing her into the home.

  It was a regular family’s home, and the cloaked figure headed for a door that led into a cellar. The underground was frigid, and Leah soon understood why. Kegs upon kegs of Winterforge’s famous alcoholic drink were kept in near freezing temperatures.

  Leah almost slapped her forehead. Did she really follow someone home to spy on their wine collection? And though her lazy mind was telling her to return and that this was stupid, she stayed on their heels.

  Who kept an invisibility spell up in their own home?

  The subject of the question reached the rear of the cellar, coming to a standstill before a large wall left free of kegs. They placed their hand on the wall, then, to Leah’s great surprise, the wall split, and an exit revealed itself, a tunnel big enough for a person to walk through.

  I didn’t sense anything, Leah thought. Even now it remained nothing but a wall to her senses. She thought of the underground chamber they had found today. Her determination doubled in the span of a second.

  She stuck as close to the figure as possible, who had undone their invisibility spell and lit a torch for this part of the journey. Leah nearly exclaimed. It was Eirwen. No wonder she had followed Nerya and Levi.

  They took a meandering path west—in the direction of the mountains, which didn’t make sense. Winterforge was cut off from the rest of the land.

  Eirwen, oblivious to Leah’s bafflement, continued in absolute quiet. They reached a dead-end. Eirwen took a deep breath and blew out her torch, allowing the dark to swallow them once more. It was but for a moment. Stone shifted again, and moonlight poured into the tunnel, dispelling the shadows. They were standing at the edge of Winterforge. Leah peered over Eirwen’s shoulder. Below, the gaping void of the crevasse greeted her.

  So what now? Leah thought…

  And was astonished when Eirwen stepped across the edge without warning. Leah almost called out and yanked the noblewoman back by the shoulder, but she stopped herself. Eirwen was walking. Walking on air.

  But Leah couldn’t detect a single fluctuation of mana besides what Eirwen was using to power her invisibility spell. And then there was the soft click of a hard heel on a harder surface.

  An invisible bridge, Leah realised. She swallowed, and put out a tentative step. Her foot touched solid ground. The entrance was closing, so Leah rushed after Eirwen. They took a convoluted path, and Leah figured out the bridge had gaps in it. She began leaving mana footprints as soon as she noticed, but they were already halfway across the crevasse.

  She would have to figure the rest out herself on the way back—a problem for later.

  They reached the other side of the crevasse, where the ground rose like a towering wall. Here, too, there was a secret entrance. They entered, and Eirwen lit her torch again and dropped her spell.

  Someone Leah wasn’t expecting was waiting on the other side.

  ‘Took you long enough.’

  ‘Sorry, dear,’ the Lady of Ebonfrost told her husband. ‘I was sidetracked.’

  ‘You? Sidetracked?’

  Eirwen smiled. ‘Did you know? Our daughter is taking that little priest to the quarry tonight.’

  ‘What?’ Arnok couldn’t have adopted a more sour face. ‘I told her to mind her damned business.’

  Eirwen shrugged. ‘Don’t kill the messenger.’

  The man shook his head. ‘Let’s go.’

  Eirwen linked her arm through that of Arnok, and the couple moved through the tunnels, Arnok taking over the torch.

  Leah was right behind them.

  ‘Oh, don’t look so glum, Arny—’ Eirwen’s voice echoed off the walls.

  How long have these tunnels been here? Leah thought. They were big enough she could walk with ease. Even that cursed giantess wouldn’t have trouble walking through here.

  ‘—I doubt it means anything.’

  ‘It won’t if she knows whats good for her,’ the husband grunted. ‘You see now why I keep them separate?’

  Leah couldn’t see it but she felt Eirwen roll her eyes. ‘She’s just curious about the outside world—and why wouldn’t she be? You’ve kept her holed up in Winterforge her whole life!’

  ‘For her own good!’

  Eirwen snorted. ‘Your own sanity you mean. She should’ve been engaged years ago and married already. I was when I was her age.’

  ‘I’m not having this discussion now.’

  ‘Have it your way,’ Eirwen said with the experience of a wife of dozens of years. Then added cheekily: ‘She’s going to find a suitor someday.’

  Arnok remained silent.

  Leah listened with half an ear, her senses trained and trying to figure out where exactly they were compared to the surface. Would the tunnel get them to the chamber? That couldn’t be, right…?

  The couple’s footsteps were the sole sound for a while. They reached a part that sloped down and ended in a t-section. Leah refrained from cursing. Leaving behind more mana footprints increased her chance of being discovered, so she hoped there wouldn’t be more of those.

  There were, in fact, more of those. Her misery ended when they came upon an exit much like the one they had found in the mountain; a drop that led to an underground chamber. Arnok swiped his hand, and a staircase of ice formed, which the trio descended.

  Leah surveyed her surroundings. The lower ground was much like Winterforge, a platform that was disconnected from the rest of the land. There was no darkness in the crevasse below. Instead, glowing water flowed through the earth. Leah’s eyes widened. That was—

  ‘Lord and Lady Ebonfrost, it is great to see you again.’

  The voice pulled Leah’s attention. A hooded figure lounged in the centre of the platform. They were tall and slender, which was most of what Leah could see from the outside. Their cowl shaded their face. What it did not shade, however, were the ears poking out the side. Leah nearly faltered in her steps. The ears were pointed.

  ‘I can’t say the same,’ Arnok said.

  Eirwen’s lips curved, echoing his sentiment.

  ‘So I suspected,’ the elf said, shrugging. ‘You requested a talk?’

  The elf wasn’t really here, Leah realised. She was looking at an image, a shimmer. He was projecting his presence into this area to speak with the Ebonfrosts.

  Chief Arnok’s face grew dark. ‘You know why we’re here. Do not take us for fools and waste our time.’

  A moment passed, then the elven shimmer sighed. ‘What’s happening to your mountain is a shame, but there is no avoiding it.’

  ‘No avoiding it?’ Arnok snarled. ‘We had a deal.’

  ‘And I’m doing my best to honour it.’

  ‘Your best? You assured us no such thing would happen,’ Eirwen reminded him.

  ‘Complications happen.’

  Arnok’s stance squared. ‘You forget yourself, elf. Do not make us reconsider our deal.’

  The shimmer laughed heartily. ‘And what will you do, crawl to your Warden? Go on! I promise to visit your execution.’ He shook his head. ‘I stopped treating you as a fool when you asked. Please, stop taking me for one also.’

  Arnok leaned back, swallowing his anger. Eirwen spoke instead. ‘We could collapse the tunnels. Would that hit closer to home?’

  The elf’s mirth vanished. ‘Don’t push your luck, child, or you’ll become an orphaned ruler.’

  The three of them paused.

  ‘Look,’ the elf sighed, ‘we’ll be gone before you know it, then you’ll have the rest of your short lives to worship your silly mountain.’

  Lord and Lady Ebonfrost remained silent.

  ‘We did some digging, you know,’ Arnok said finally.

  The elf’s head tilted. ‘Digging?’

  His wife pulled on his arm, but the man continued. ‘A famous writer wrote a book on elven society, do you know of it?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t. What’s their name?’

  ‘The author left their work uncredited,’ Eirwen said, jumping on board now that her husband had forced the issue.

  ‘Ah, that old human custom,’ the elf said. ‘I’ll never understand keeping your work unclaimed if not forced to do so. What about the book?’

  Arnok grinned. ‘In the book, the writer outlines a Tew. I shouldn’t have to explain to you what that is.’

  The elf’s posture changed from uninterested and half-listening to attentive.

  ‘It’s about a certain law,’ Eirwen said. ‘The one about elf royalty dealing with other kingdoms. You may have heard of it.’

  The law in question was The Royal Ordinance of Queleth, Leah, who was soaking up every detail, thought. Absentmindedly, she wondered if the elf was a foulblood or highblood, but the former didn’t make sense. The Duchy was a vassal state of the foulblood empire. There was no point in the secrecy going on here if he was one of them. That meant the magus was a highblood, and, indeed, every highblood mage was subject to the Royal Ordinance.

  ‘I know of the Tews,’ the elf said. ‘What is it you’re trying to say?’

  ‘What we’re saying,’ Arnok started, ‘is that you may be stronger and older—’

  ‘—but you shouldn’t underestimate us children,’ Eirwen finished.

  The air around the shimmer grew heavier by a hair. ‘I have been nothing but polite and you threaten me?’

  ‘There was no avoiding it,’ Arnok said.

  ‘Good one,’ the elf chuckled. ‘However, how are you planning to report an elf whose name you don’t know?’ He smiled at the resulting quiet. ‘But I suppose that is why you brought the mage. Did you hope she could read my name from my mana signature?’

  A moment.

  Eirwen raised her brow. ‘What mage?’

  The shimmer studied both her and Arnok intently before saying: ‘Huh, truly?’

  Leah threw herself to the floor without thinking, which was what saved her life.

  The beam of light had slashed the side of her cloak, cutting through the material like a sharpened knife. Her invisibility faded, and both Ebonfrosts jumped back.

  ‘So,’ the elf said, smiling at her. ‘Mind telling me who you are?’