Star Mage (Book 5) (9 page)

As they neared the charred central part of the city filled with collapsed buildings and stones strewn across the streets, he strengthened his hold over the undead soldiers’ minds, knowing how easily another necromancer might be able to steal them. From his practice of mental domination at the Order of the Dawn, Nikulo had learned how to sense when another wizard was attempting to commandeer a creature he controlled. He compared the feeling to watching a serene pond for biting fish, and the faint tug they make on the line. No one was biting. For now…

Closer in they caught the confused eyes of bands of citizens in active revolt, armed with only crude cudgels and cleavers and farm axes. These ill-protected revolutionists made sweet bait for the hordes of undead lumbering after them. Lucky for them, Nikulo intercepted the hordes and saved the streets from a bloodbath.

“You fight for us, wizard?” asked a tall, grim-faced man who was one of the few to actually wield a sword. More of his comrades crowded in around the caravan, faces tensed and gaping in dismay at Nikulo’s army of undead.

Nikulo snorted and studied the man, assuming him their leader. “I fight for myself. Little did I know Ursula would have war raging in her streets. I aim for the ports and out to sea. Who brings these undead, the Jiserian scourge?”

“Where are you from, young master? You wear the style of clothes from Naru, and though we know the city fallen to the Jiserians and filled with undead, we heard a rumor from a scout passing here a week ago that Naru is reborn and a savior come to renew and rebuild her back to her once grandeur.”

“Tis all true, Naru is restored, though not fully. I’ve left Naru myself. There is a fear that the Jiserians will return.” Nikulo leapt off the wagon and stood tall and faced the crowd. “Are you content to allow the undead to feast on your children and grandparents? They are going after the weak first, you know. You are ill prepared and poorly armed to deal with the Jiserians. Have you no magicians or wizards among you?”

The eyes of those in crowd were sullen and desperate, and no one offered a hopeful answer. Their red-haired leader spoke in a somber tone. “All our champions are either slain or turned to undead. Beware, as some of the undead are wizards who still possess the gift of casting. Will you help us defeat them?”

“I am called Nikulo, though who I am doesn’t matter. What’s the name of the leader that I fight with against our common enemies?”

The man brightened at Nikulo’s words, seizing and shaking his hand in delight. “I am Yarin, a merchant and leader of our revolutionary group. We tired of the daily insults and torment of our imposed rulers, and managed to kill several sorcerers in their sleep before the streets erupted into bloodshed. From what we know, only a handful of sorcerers and necromancers remain. Emperor Ghaalis withdrew his fleet from our docks and ordered all Stelan Knights returned to Carvina. When we heard there was war in Ishur amongst the magical Orders, we struck out against the few Jiserians remaining in our city.”

Nikulo frowned at the man’s words and scanned the ragged crowd and the ruined city. A handful of sorcerers and necromancers did all this? The city was easily ten times the size of Naru, though far less dense. Still, the prospect of facing such powerful fanatics didn’t thrill him. Did it really matter if he helped them? The Naemarians would certainly bring back the pain if they found him distracted from his goal of reaching the ship to Carvina.

“If we are to defeat our enemies I will need your help.” Nikulo remembered back to history lessons of successful military maneuvers and strategies of legendary campaigns.
Distract, divert, divide, and destroy,
he thought, remembering the four D’s of warfare. Likely these citizens were inexperienced in the ways of war and winning. “Do any of you have a map of Ursula?”

An old man ambled up to where he stood and at Yarin’s nod, produced a thick parchment penned in an ornate and flowery hand. Nikulo studied the map and observed the position of the buildings in the center of the city, and asked a few clarifying questions as to the locations of their enemies. When he asked where the others of their resistance lurked, he gaped in bewilderment at their utter lack of organization or communication infrastructure. No wonder the Jiserians had had an easy time defeating them. They’d won already and were just entertaining themselves in the city’s slow torment.

Nikulo sketched out a four-pronged plan of attack on the map, splitting the band of citizens into four groups to lure the sorcerers in four different directions. He knew the necromancers would avoid coming out in the heat of the day, shunning sunlight for the cool of the dark. His plan included dealing with them separately. As for the sorcerers, from experience he’d seen them keep their distance and fly high and away from bowshot and sword, only swooping down to strike when necessity demanded. That was where he would come in and shoot the sorcerers at a safe range. At least that was the plan…

The crowd divided into four squads as Nikulo had ordered, and Yarin joined the lead group that would strike from the west. Nikulo commanded double the number of undead to follow and protect each group, infusing their plagued minds with a fervent loyalty towards the living. He hoped there would be enough to keep the revolutionaries alive and provide a suitable allurement for the sorcerers.

Callith left the wagon and stood by his side, watching the ragtag squads marching off through the streets. She scoffed and shook her head. “Strangest army I’ve ever seen. Do they even have a chance of surviving against the Jiserians?”

“Not likely,” Nikulo said, as the last of the citizens left the square. He had kept a group of around forty undead to protect them or to use as bait against the sorcerers. “Let’s go. We’ll move in after Yarin.”

As they trekked through the littered streets, Nikulo thought about what could go wrong. The sorcerers might not take the bait and go after the squads, and the necromancers might not stay inside. If the Jiserians joined forces against a perceived larger threat, that could make things extremely difficult for him. He hoped that dispersed attacks over time would split the sorcerers and allow him to kill them one by one. But he hadn’t anticipated that there might exist a rivalry amongst the Jiserians.

The first drone and boom of a fireball came sooner than he’d expected. Nikulo chased ahead and commanded the undead to follow, veering around overturned carts and piles of bodies decomposing in the street. Soon he spied a sorcerer hovering in the air above a crowd of cringing citizens, while the protective undead clambered up a building in the impossible hope of attacking the sorcerer.

Nikulo drew in power from the Ghaelstrom crystal and focused on the Jiserian sorcerer who had turned to face the revolutionaries running from an explosion of flames. The noxious cord of poison jettisoned from Nikulo’s palm and tore through the air towards the flying sorcerer. Behind a burning, overturned wagon, Yarin released a triumphant shout as the shrieking sorcerer’s skin erupted into blistering pustules and the Jiserian plummeted to the ground in a wet, bloody thud.

One enemy down
, Nikulo told himself, and gave Yarin a victorious salute. The slaves and the caravan pulled hesitantly up to where Nikulo and Yarin’s group were reforming. Nikulo noticed that several of Yarin’s squad of bedraggled soldiers were missing, and one glance at the spot where they had tried to shield themselves from the sorcerer showed him the blackened bodies of the slain citizens. His plan had cost the lives of several innocent people. But he was surprised to find that more were not dead.

After the first attack, the other three squads were supposed to execute a series of assaults against known points of Jiserian control in the center of the city. But the experience with the flying sorcerer had taught him that the citizens were ineffective other than playing a role as bait. Nikulo decided it was far better for them to get roasted by Jiserian fireballs, and avoid getting burned himself.

“Young master Nikulo, I hope your plan works smoother next time. Several of my comrades were slain.” Yarin bore a pained expression on his face as he looked at the burned bodies.

“Tell them to hide behind something stronger next time.” Nikulo strained his eyes to study the sky above a far temple. Was that another sorcerer who’d spotted their soldiers in the far group? “We need to hurry, I think we’ve roused more Jiserians. Callith, keep the caravan and the slaves here until I return. I don’t think you’ll survive a fireball blast. Watch the skies for my signal, a single shot of flame soaring towards the clouds, and only come to the docks then. Otherwise I might be dead, in which case you’ll be wise to turn and trek back to Naru, or flee up north.”

They charged ahead through the terrorized streets, past government buildings and ruined palaces and destroyed temples, until they reached a grand plaza where unnatural storm clouds slowly blotted out the sun.
Necromancers fight under the protection of darkness
, he thought, remembering the words of Master Viridian. Nikulo wondered if he knew enough spells of elemental magic to aid him? He could summon light, but that would just mark him as a target.
It’s quite possible
, thought Nikulo,
that the Jiserians are hoping for me to act as foolish as those feeble-minded citizens of Ursula
. He wasn’t intending to meet their minuscule expectations.

From the four fringes of the plaza, the thick air released hundreds of small, shining shots that illuminated the broken landscape and caused Nikulo and the others to seek the darkness behind damaged trees and abandoned vendor stalls and cracked statues of the gods. There was silence as the shots ceased and the shimmering globs of burning pitch cast eerie, twisting shadows across the plaza. So much for dividing their enemy. If they moved, they’d likely be zapped by lightning strikes. Nikulo grinned to himself. But if he sent the undead out into the plaza…

He pressed fingers to his temple and commanded an undead man with a desiccated body to run out towards a mass of burning pitch, and readied a spell to strike out at a sorcerer. There was a pause as the undead man stumbled about in the ruined plaza, his foaming mouth confused and stupid, and his arms swayed around like branches under a rising gale. Nikulo waited for some secret verdict to unleash its wrath.

It did not come. And as the undead man stood stupidly in a shambling dance, the sky slowly cleared and the burning pitch waned to smoke and ash and coldness. Confused, Nikulo studied the air from the protection of a tree trunk and found that the sorcerers had vanished. What had caused them to leave?

“It seems the sorcerers have fled,” Nikulo said. Then he thought of something and turned his gaze to Yarin. “Have you noticed anything strange about the Jiserian sorcerers and necromancers in the last few days?”

“Anything strange?” Yarin said, and scratched his scraggly beard, eyes locked away on some distant thought. “Well we rarely see the necromancers anymore, only the bands of undead roaming and feasting throughout the city. If it wasn’t for the undead, you would think the necromancers had gone, for they are never seen with the sorcerers these days.”

Then the realization hit Nikulo with the weight of a heavy block of stone. There was conflict between the necromancers and the sorcerers, and likely the act of Nikulo slaying the sorcerer and sending the undead out as bait confirmed the sorcerers’ suspicion that the necromancers were in league against them. How could he incite and inflame the hostilities between them?

“Can you take me to one of the places where the necromancers are known to live?” Nikulo studied Yarin. “You had mentioned before that you thought they nested in the depths of various libraries across the city.” Maybe if he could root out the necromancers from their hiding places, he could invoke open warfare between them.

Yarin nodded and glanced around, then facing the south, he led them down another street until they reached a towering marble building with twisting pillars and a full consort of deities and demigods mounted in a procession along the pristine pediment.
 

“No citizen dares venture inside anymore, not since the Jiserian occupation. The Library of Nestria has become the warren of the necromancers, and deep inside the basement archives they have founded a coven of the dead. If you choose to enter, we will not follow you.”

Nikulo released a devious chuckle. “I wouldn’t think of asking such a thing. I’m not even foolish enough to go inside myself. I’ll let my pets do the dirty work for us. Let’s see how these necromancers enjoy the wrath of the undead turned against them.”
An unbreakable wrath filled with the power from the Ghaelstrom crystal,
he thought.

He sent a mental command to his horde of forty undead, a command most receptively received by their vengeful minds.
Go inside the library, go down and seek your former masters, and tear limbs from torsos, and heads from trunks. Feast and devour until there is nothing left of them.

The undead chased off, teeth clattering together in delight, and they disappeared into the darkness of the library.