Lich Lord, Chapter 155

My orders to the troops had been to not kill anyone who was not a threat to them, but still try and contain the populace where possible. Most of the citizens just hid in their houses.

I expected the citizens to flee as soon as they could. Then again, my army was stationed on the only major road out of town and fleeing through the countryside is not something non-adventurers could do easily. The fear of the citizens was almost palpable. I had just finished giving a similar speech to that in Dead Water, though I left out the blood magic part.

“I did not come here to kill you or turn you into living dead,” I said as I was ending my speech. “I came here because Olattee picked a fight with me, so I responded.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but I didn’t care it is not like they would believe me anyways. I just hoped to allay some of the citizens’ worries.

The bodies of the fallen soldiers were gathered outside of the city. We had not abstained from using the  many spells that created undead during the fight, because the undead we would have created would be temporary. Taking the time to do it correctly would result in better troops or at least permanent fodder.

I was passing through the town accompanied by the Terhaim when a man stepped out in front of us. Abimelech quickly stepped forward,  her hand on her sword. “Wait, Abimelech.” I said. It was at that point I realized I probably needed normal staff as well as warriors. The Terhaim were great, but they bent towards violence first questions later. I nodded at Maxwell, glad he had come with us.

“How may we help you, good sir?” Maxwell asked as he stepped forward.

“I—” he was terrified, that much was clear. I waved for the Terhaim to move back, their imposing frames enough to unnerve even stalwart people. “What do you want with us?”

“Truth be told, friend,” Maxwell’s words were smooth and honeyed, a perfect example of a bard at work. “What was said this morning is the truth. Continue living your lives. Heck, you will probably even be taxed less. Ezekiel is not here for your soul or anything so melodramatic.”

“But he’s a lich,” the man said, shooting a fearful glance at me. “We know the stories about his kind.”

“Call him a reformed lich,” Maxwell said. “He actually serves the Order of Equinox if you know what that is.” The blank look in the man’s eyes made it clear he did not. “If you wish to become living dead, you are welcome to, but it is not our goal. We are waging war against the church of Olattee. If that was possible without involving civilians or Valdor in general, we would. But we both know the church basically runs the kingdom.”

To my surprise, the man’s demeanor continued to change as Maxwell talked. The tension in his eyes and body lessened, and his words became a bit more confident. “If you say so, I will believe it,” the man said, which just went to show the power of a bard. Truth be told, if I had been in that man’s position, I don’t know if I would’ve believed Maxwell. “We just want to continue living our lives. Olattee is the religion people follow, but it’s not what it used to be. I know of many who were already wanting to walk away.”

They continued to chat for several minutes, Maxwell assuring him of my, if not benevolent, benign intentions towards them. When the man disappeared to spread word of the conversation, Maxwell returned. “Okay, maybe we don’t want to go for the domineering version of Ezekiel with these people.” He eyed me. “The ‘reformed’ version might go over easier.”

“What I need instead is propaganda,” I said. “You know, like dropping flyers on the cities we are going to conquer, saying ‘Ezekiel is not the monster he seems’, because then they might believe the reformed me.”

“We could send runners out to try and spread that message,” Maxwell chuckled.

“Maybe,” I agreed.

The fallen bodies of the bone guard I had lost in the city were neatly laid out in the grassy field. A large area had already been stripped of grass and leveled. The dirt had been compacted down as much as possible, all I had to do was begin my work.

The rituals were fairly simple, and before long, I was pouring death magic into them. It used materials refined from the fallen soldiers and funneled into the fallen bone guard, repairing the damage done and restoring them to service. I hoped none of the more advanced would die, as those would be far more complicated to replace. By the time I was done it was late afternoon because I’d spent the morning meditating. It had been a very long day.

I looked at the pile of bodies which now had a small unkindness of ravens on it. I had been planning on creating a bunch of zombies, potentially even something more advanced than that if I had the time, but looking at the raven made me reconsider that. “Raven,” I said, knowing she was around somewhere nearby. A moment later, she was standing next to me. “Can you bring me one of those ravens?”

As if sensing my words, one raven, bigger than the rest, looked at me and cocked its head. “That one is going to come over here on its own. Next time just talk to them, they’re really smart and are known as the harbingers of death,” Raven said in a no-duh tone as she transformed back into her lynx form and returned to stalking whatever she’d been hunting.

I held out my arm not knowing what else to do and said, “I would like to look closer at you, if you don’t mind.” The raven cocked its head at me and cawed. When I tried to examine it, nothing came up.

Suddenly the big raven jumped in the air and, flapping its wings, landed on my arm. I stared in surprise, not really having expected it to come over to me. The raven was big, but its weight felt like nothing on my arm. It cawed again, as if in question. I looked into its eyes. They were intelligent, more so than any other creature I had looked at.

The intelligence, or rather the feeling the intelligence gave off changed. It’s really hard to explain, as though that stare shifted from that of an animal to something else. I got the sense that something had possessed the creature, thanks to my experience, and it was looking at me through the birds eyes. I felt the hint of a mental connection and tried to fight but it was too late by that point.

As sudden as the intelligence changed so sudden was I in my mindscape. I didn’t meditate to get there, I just appeared there. I stood in the center of my mindscape where I normally would be. Damien came flying over, followed by Ilore. “Zeke, be very careful,” Damien was just beginning to say when a figure stood before us, having appeared in an unkindness of ravens.

The figure was humanoid with pale skin and raven-like but androgynous features. Their hair was made of black feathers, and even the clothes they wore were all made out of feathers. Their eyes were the same eyes I had just been staring into. “Deity,” Damien whispered.

Damien had not been quiet enough, for the figure stared at him. It said something to Damien in a language I did not know. The language was flowing without pauses, with guttural throat sounds mixed in. Damien looked a little surprised and then responded in the same language, though his version had less squawks and screeches—those must just be the dialect of this deity.

I was about to ask who it was when the raven deity addressed me. “A lich in my dominion. I have ignored you, for you were nothing. Now you are something. I will see for myself if what the dark one says is true.”

Damien snapped something in the other language that was commanding and authoritative, but the raven deity snarled back. “I can’t stop her,” Damien said.

Before I could respond, the world froze, and a door I recognized appeared.