B4C65 - Battle of the Dead

Power thrummed within Tyron. Every fibre of his being was awash with it. His personal reservoir of magick boomed like an ocean, crashing against the confines of his soul with the fury of a hurricane.

And he could sense all of it. Almost like he had been granted a sixth sense, Perceive Magick gave him… an extra sensory organ tuned only to the ebb and flow of arcane energy. When he raised his hands and began to form sigils, he could feel the power move with a clarity he had never experienced before, sense it flow and change as he enforced his will, shaping it into something new.

He was so enraptured with this sensation he found it difficult to focus on the unfolding battle in front of him.

Wights, revenants and his strongest skeletons, backed by the massive Bone Giants he had constructed, assaulted the now-open gates. Disciplined ranks of highly trained, high-level Soldiers, Archers and Mages held the line, refusing to give ground to his undead army.

That simply wouldn’t do.

Once again, Tyron raised his hands and began to bend reality to his will. Magick flowed like a river as he spoke the words of power, using every ounce of skill and potency he could muster. He poured all of it into the spell he was crafting.

From his feet, a grey mist began to spread. It spread rapidly, blossoming outwards into a circle with him at the centre. The mist wasn’t real, but a construct formed of magick, and he had to constantly supply more energy to maintain it, but once it reached the defensive line, its effects became known.

Men cried out in pain and anger as the mist, no more than a few centimetres high, began to drift around their feet. As they did so, the small pockets of the mist that touched them became tinged with red light, and began to drift towards Tyron, rather than away from him. 

When these small patches of mist reached him, they flowed into his flesh, and he felt the invigorating energy they contained merge with his own.

The Field of Death. A spell he hadn’t employed much, but had taken the time to study. It would steal away the life force of the living and bring it to him, so long as it was active. 

With a sharp breath, he began to enact another of his new abilities. Placing a hand on his chest, he sensed his own life, the vitality that infused his body, and began to burn it. With a constitution as absurdly robust as his own, Tyron’s life force was a roaring flame, a great bonfire that would sustain him through inhuman levels of punishment and deprivation, but he had another use for it now.

As he sacrificed his own life, it changed form, turning into magick and flowing into the raging reservoir within him. 

In a detached manner, he examined the torrent of magick within him. All around, his minions were drawing on his power. The mages of the tower continued to rain down magick upon him, but Tyron was protected by the dozens of skeletal mages he had created for the specific purpose of shielding him. At the front, his Bone Giants, wights, revenants and basic minions fought vigorously, draining yet more power. The Field of Death, the ever-flowing mist that gushed outwards from around his feet, also drew on his power.

Yet now he counteracted that loss, providing new energy, pouring in more and more magick as he consumed his own vitality to supply it.

When a third of his life force had been burned away, he stopped and took stock. 

The mist continued to bring him small packets of healing, which suffused him and replenished his energy, but the Field of Death wasn’t paying for itself. The spell took all the life it stole and turned it into magick, but he was still running at a loss. Yet he felt that was likely due to the Skills being new and relatively low-levelled. When he grasped them better, they would cost less to cast and the ratio of life-to-magick would improve, allowing him to gain more from them. 

For now, it was fine. The drain on his power was more than manageable. His minions continued to generate their own energy using the intricately crafted web of conduits that bound them together. In fact, with all of his minions finally gathered together in one place, Tyron was able to witness just how much death-aligned energy they were able to create between them.

His mind was cast back to that first moment when he had witnessed the tiny flecks of energy being passed between remains, growing ever so slightly each time. Gradually, that process would accelerate until the bodies were saturated, giving rise to wild undead. Now he witnessed that same process, but magnified several thousand times over.

Not only did his minions constantly draw in and convert ambient magick through the arrays he had built into them, they also generated death magick just by being around each other, passing that energy between them and growing it each time.

The end result was that the larger his horde grew, the more it would be capable of sustaining itself. The draw on his own reserves was much lower than he had expected, which meant he could spend more of his own power to tip the balance in his minions’ favour.

With a thought, Tyron commanded his minions, and they obeyed his will. All around the horde, the cauldrons were activated, spewing forth dense black mist suffused with death magick. In less than a minute, the entire avenue was covered in darkness, and Tyron shifted his position so the mages could no longer concentrate their fire on him.

If they persisted in targeting him, his minions would be the ones to lose the battle of attrition. To remain safe, he needed to hide from their sight and break into the tower before they could dispel the black mist again.

Reality shivered like a struck bell as he spoke once more, his hands flickering rapidly from one sigil to the next. More power flowed and the Shivering Curse took hold, blanketing the battlefield in a penetrating chill that pierced armour and flesh alike, getting straight to the bone.

The Magisters were coordinated, pushing back against his magick and doing all they could to alleviate the effects. Tyron tsked as he witnessed them nullifying the curse. They weren’t able to dispel it completely, not yet at least, but the Soldiers still holding at the front were able to ignore most of its effects.

Between his skeletal mages and the Magisters, it was clear who was superior, and Tyron knew that despite all he was capable of, he wasn’t enough to tip the scales by himself. 

With the demi-liches he could now create, he would be able to rectify this deficiency and bring enough magickal firepower to his army to hold their own against large numbers of trained mages. For now, he knew he would have to continue to pour out his reserves and hope it would be enough to prevent his skeletons from being overwhelmed.

Now that he was hidden from sight, the Magisters in the towers had taken up two separate tasks. The first was attempting to break the mist and expose him once more, but they were contending not with a single spell, but a constant outpouring of energy from the cauldron constructs. To win, they would need to throw more energy at the mist than his cauldrons were providing, which would be difficult. 

The other half had taken to providing spell support to the battle at the gates. Beams of glaring red light, shards of crystalline energy that shattered just over the horde, bolts of malevolent energy, all of it rained down on his minions in a constant barrage that disrupted his front line and damaged his undead, reducing their effectiveness.

This wouldn’t do.

Tyron utilised another of his new abilities. He chanted the words and formed the sigils, extending his hands out over the horde before him, and felt the spell take effect. Once again, his life force began to burn, but this time, it wasn’t turned into magick; instead, it flowed out of him and over his army. Whenever it passed over a skeleton who had suffered damage, it flowed into them, his vitality consumed to reforge their bones and repair their weave.

As he cut off the spell, he staggered to one side, clutching at his chest. Flesh to Bone was just what he had hoped for, but draining himself of so much life was a less than pleasant experience. Even using as much vitality as he had, he was far from repairing all the damage his undead had already sustained, especially at the front.

Still, his minions were better positioned now. More of his skeletal mages had moved to the front to help shield the undead, and more of his shield-bearing minions were in position to defend their brethren.

Drained of life, Tyron knew he had to keep pushing, so he didn’t stop. Gathering himself again, he cast Death Blades, empowering the weapons of his army. When that was done, he began to hurl offensive magick into the fray. 

Bone Lances and Death’s Fists began to flow, one after another as he employed the dual casting technique, words tripping from his tongue so rapidly they were almost indistinguishable from one another. Many of his spells were deflected or blocked, but many others weren’t. Every time he caused damage, a little bit of life energy would meld with his own, gradually healing him and replenishing his reserves.

Tyron’s skeletons outnumbered the defenders by ten to one or more, but the weight of those numbers didn’t matter so long as they had to fight into the relatively narrow gateway. The Soldiers and Magisters clearly realised the same, since they seemed determined to hold the passage, no matter the sacrifice. Despite pushing hard, his undead hadn’t been able to dislodge the enemy, and the battle had stalled. It was becoming a waiting game. He would eventually be able to grind down the defenders. With his superior numbers and unrelenting undead, it was only a matter of time. It didn’t matter if every Soldier took down five skeletons before succumbing, there would still be a horde standing at the end.

Yet could Tyron afford to wait that long? He was under no illusions that the entirety of the forces in Kenmor were present within the Red Tower, far from it. Eventually, the ghosts he had created to act as a distraction would be dealt with and the Duke would collapse on him like an iron fist. In fact, if Tyron didn’t breach the tower, the Duke wouldn’t even have to. The Gold-ranked Slayers would be driven to do the job for him, and he had no chance of standing against them.

Decisively, Tyron turned towards the arch of bone that stood behind him, striding up to the great door and pulling it open once more.

“You’re needed,” he called inside, before stepping back to allow space.

The sound of shuffling, then heavy footsteps, the dull grind of bone on bone as something within approached the door.

“I didn’t think you wanted us to come out this early,” an eerie, surreal voice stated.

“I didn’t,” Tyron replied, flatly, “but needs must.”

From within, a wight emerged, glowing spirit flesh bound to their still visible skeleton within, yet this one was different from the others. Clad head to foot in layers of dense, black bone armour, this undead was the most heavily armoured of his servants by far. Such a weight of armour would make a minion ungainly under normal circumstances, but for this particular wight, it wouldn’t matter so much.

As his undead emerged, so too did the reins in their hand, followed by the ghastly, skeletal form of an undead horse. The form of the equine burned with purple light, indicating the soul of the animal still existed, moulded into the frame. It too was bound in heavy bone plating, a powerful array bound into its ribcage feeding power to the entire form.

Once the mount was clear of the door, the wight reached up and climbed into the saddle, then silently directed the skeletal horse to move, making way for those that came behind.

There were ten altogether. Not an overwhelming number, but each had taken a lot of time to put together, and a considerable amount of resources. Only the first was a wight, but the rest were all revenants. Tyron had hoped to use them as a surprise for later conflicts, but he needed them now.

As his fellow undead mounted up behind him, the wight took in the sight of the unfolding battle and the grand tower rising before them.

“Magisters,” he stated flatly. “You already have me killing nobles.”

“Yours was always a life of service, Captain Janus,” Tyron replied, his tone cold, “you have merely swapped one master for another. What you defended in life, I will have you destroy in death.”

“Do I have a choice?” the wight said, eerie tone filled with bitterness.

“You already made your choice. You didn’t want to fade out of existence, so now, you serve.”