The Empire of Death, Part Three

Ignatius studied the scroll closely, the small light burning in the oil lamp flickering softly on the box above him. 

Spending the night in a warehouse wasn’t the safest place in the world, but the shops on the ground floor were long closed, so as long as none of the Enforcers made a trip to check on the sacks of grain at night, he should be fine. He had been the past week, at least.

That week was… complicated. Ignatius supposed he should be glad to be alive, and he was, but he’d made virtually no progress. He’d gotten a touch further north, but he was still barely a day’s walk from his old farm, and near a section of Shadehallow Wood. 

With patrols of Enforcer skeletons constantly marching up and down every roadway day and night, he’d been forced to move through the farms and back country. Stealing food, water, and thin ale from his fellow serfs made him feel awful, but he’d had to survive. 

Perhaps the one minor good that had come from it was that he’d managed to sort through the dozen vellum spell scrolls, and had identified a pair of spells he wanted to learn: Fire Bolt and Lightning Palm.

He couldn’t practice Fire Bolt here and now, since he was already being risky with the oil lamp, but the second…

He raised his hand and pushed his mana out into his fingertips, then began making the long, sweeping gestures of the spell. A few seconds later, he filled the form with mana. 

What was supposed to happen was a crackling weave of barely-visible lightning forming around his palm, which would discharge and intensify when he struck something. 

Instead, a searing pink wave of lightning formed around his palm, brighter than his stolen oil lamp. It seemed to draw on his rage, rage at the god-king for branding him a deviant, rage at the unfairness of having to steal from his fellow commoners, rage at not being sure if he was able to survive the night. In a panic, Ignatius thrust his hand out, slapping it against the closed wooden shutters. The lightning cracked through the shutter, ripping it apart and reducing it to ash, as red light swirled out of the smoking remains and suffused into him. 

He felt it soak into his muscles, even as minor scrapes, scabs, and bruises across his body healed away to nothing more than scars. There was some rose colored light left, and it rushed through him, working on his insides. When it finished, he felt… better. Stronger. Not much, but enough to be noticeable. 

Ignatius stated at his palm, dumbfounded. He knew he needed to run, that the noise and light would attract town guards and possibly the Enforcers. 

But he was certain that he’d just found his legacy. It was clearly a complex and powerful one, judging by the window. 

First, it had made his magic stronger, and by a good amount. Judging by the description written on the scroll against the actual effect, it was at least five times as effective, perhaps even more. 

Then it healed him. Healing legacies were absurdly rare and valuable, and even if it could only work on him, it was incredible. 

But then it had… refined his body? Infused his body with mana? Something. Whatever it was, it seemed to be permanent, as he still felt much stronger. 

None of those effects happened when he cast mageless mana. Was it only mage mana that had the effect? Maybe only offensive magic? 

Those were questions for another time. He grabbed the scroll with Fire Bolt and quickly sketched it, then let go of the magic, before he snatched up the hudau stone and squeezed it. 

He gasped as a cool, steady power flowed into him. Nothing happened for an instant, and the power started to slip away, so in a panic, Ignatius sent it into his sun and storm mana. It ran into his spells, and he focused, directing the flow into them. Within moments, the spell bloomed into mastery. The spells felt like they could take more power, and that might unlock those ‘ingrained effects’ the scrolls mentioned, but Ignatius hesitated. 

He changed his focus, not wanting to waste the power, in case that wasn’t how it worked. He pushed the power into the twin pools of sun and storm magic, and each grew significantly before the power vanished. The stone crumbled away to nothing at all, and Ignatius started moving. He shoved his scrolls, the handful of personal items, and what food he’d managed to scavenge into his mother’s blanket, then threw it on his back and blew out the light. 

That was when he heard it. The click-clack of bone on bone. Glancing out the window, his heart sank.

Enforcers were swarming toward the warehouse. 

He’d heard that the god-king’s handcrafted ones could best a mage of equal advancement, but so far from the palace, these would be simple ones held together by previously-extant ligaments of ectoplasm and the nearest ghost, shade, or other death spirit that could be stuffed within the bones. One on one, they wouldn’t be too dangerous.

But by his quick count, there were over forty Enforcers racing their way right for him. 

He threw his bag over one shoulder and began to rush to the door, hoping he could get out before they could circle to the front entrance, and kicked open the door without even pausing. He started running, and–agh!

He slammed to the ground as an arrow ripped into his leg, and turned to see the enforcers swarming him from both the right and left. Desperately, he thrust his palm out and cast Fire Bolt at the next one drawing a bow, then another at the nearest, then another. 

The air flickered with balls of flame, and just as with his lightning spell, red rose light infused all of them. Instead of the fist sized ball of flame, the spells were like massive pumpkins of fire that ripped into the enforcers, charring their bones and burning away the faint ectoplasmic threads keeping them together. 

As with before, red light rushed back to him from the three destroyed skeletons. The arrow in his leg began to reverse course, slowly sliding out, before falling to the ground in a squelching thump, leaving the faint red of newly healed skin beneath. 

He barely had a moment to stare before another Enforcer was over him, raising its sword for a downward stab. Ignatius thrust his hand out, casting Lightning Palm, and the enforcer practically exploded. He scrambled to his feet even as another sword crashed into him, slashing along his back, and was healed by the cherry-colored magical light. He thrust out with Lightning Palms and unleashed Fire Bolts even as they struck him with spears and axes and swords. Blood spurted, his rage seemed to float through his mind, red light flowed, and skeletons crumbled.

It wasn’t enough. He could crush an Enforcer with a single spell, but there were far too many of them, and his bone garden was starting to run dry. He swapped his tactics, pushing forward to the thinnest patch of the skeletal forces, even as the light healed the continual wounds that the Enforcers dealt.

He slammed his crackling hand into one, threw its charring bones into the path of another, kicked out, threw a ball of flame at another…

And then he was free.

He sprinted down the road, his body still glowing when red light. It infused him, restoring his stamina, fixing the tearing in his back as an arrow ripped into it, even blunting the pain. 

Then a set of four arrows slammed into his left side, and he nearly died. The remaining light was enough to push them out, but the prior pack of Enforcers was coming up from behind him, and a new pack was emerging from the right. He tried to stand, but yipped and fell as an arrow almost stuck his head, barely curling to the right to avoid it. 

There, to his right, might be his salvation: shadehallow wood. 

He fell on his hands and knees and darted towards the wood, falling prone to avoid another arrow, then turning and rolling behind a water barrel someone had placed nearby, likely meant for warehouse workers. He used the opportunity to leap to his feet and dash into the wood, an arrow skewering into his left arm as he did. He screamed in pain and thrust his hand out, attempting to channel something, anything, into the attack, shoving his mana around. Mana slipped from the mageless pool into his sun garden, and he flung another ball of flame. 

This time, the rage that surged from within him screamed louder than ever before, and the red light that suffused the ball made it more like a wave of fire than a simple orb. When it struck, reduced three skeletons to ash in an instant, and power coursed through him, ejecting the arrow and giving him the strength to dive through the forest. He kept the rage at the forefront of his mind, the anger at everything that had happened. He tried to push the red light into his limbs, and to his surprise, it worked. His running pace went from a normal farmhand that didn’t need to worry about stamina, to downright superhuman, even as arrows pelted into the woods around him.

He sprinted ahead, weaving around trees and fauna, dodging and running. 

Fourteen hours. 

His superhuman strength didn’t last that long, of course, but that was all his lead bought him. His mana had recovered, but had been forced to use Fire Bolt to scare off a large wolf with illusionary duplicates to either side, and had used his storm mana to take on a handful of the Enforcers that had caught up to him. On and on, more of the same – each time he restored some mana, he was forced to spend it just to survive. 

But still the Enforcers came. None of them were exceptionally strong, nor were they fast, and even their numbers were somewhat diminished when spread out across the massive forest. 

But they just didn’t stop. 

Hungry, exhausted from a lack of sleep, and drained of mana, he stumbled into a clearing, only for an arrow made of bone to sink into his back. He let out a muffled grunt, but didn’t even have it in him to scream anymore. An enforcer stepped over him, and two more emerged from the woods, carrying their bows. Ignatius leaned back, exhausted. He felt like he should close his eyes, but somehow, even that felt like too much effort. 

He was going to die. He couldn’t even get angry about it, not now. He was simply exhausted. 

The skeleton above him lifted a short blade and plunged it down toward Ignatius’ chest.

When the blade was halfway there, the skeleton and blade both fell apart into a pile of bones, raining down on him. The other two skeletons and their bows did the same, and for an instant, Ignatius thought he saw three ghosts slipping away into nothingness. 

Then, the prettiest man he had ever seen stepped over him. His face was slightly round, yet also angular, and his long, dark hair fell about his head, though most was tied back in a loose pony tail. His skin was paler than most farmers, but not quite as pale as a noble’s, and he was dressed in robes that looked like what a wealthy merchant could afford. They were cut in the style of a mage and a healer, with a mix of blacks and whites, and they flowed around him. 

In one hand, he held a spinning blue orb of a spell, presumably the one that had destroyed the Enforcers with ease, and he radiated an aura of power far stronger than the landlord or the mana tester, protection mana. 

The Witch of Shadehallow Wood released the orb of magic and leaned down to examine him, a kindly and somewhat concerned look on his face. 

“Are you alright? If you’re a deviant soul on the run, I can offer some protection.”

“I am…” 

That was the last thing that Ignatius managed to do before darkness swept over him, and he passed out.