Book Of The Dead-Chapter B5: What Remains of a Shattered Realm

Pushing out of the camp was easier said than done. With so many undead within, and the constant threat of roaming kin, it was necessary to evacuate in stages, with the first to leave forming a perimeter to keep the rest safe. Once everyone was out, he had the last remaining skeletons gather up the tents and cots, pack them into the baggage train at the back of the column, and then they were off again.

This time, Tyron took the lead himself, no longer walking in the middle of the column, but standing atop his bone construct towards the head, which harboured his most powerful minions. This was his personal mount, though it felt a little odd to describe it that way, since it was no horse. The platform hadn’t changed much from the initial design he’d cobbled together in the ruins of the Red Tower.

The only addition were spider-like legs fused to the bottom side of the platform itself, now formed of bone, that propelled it by drawing on his magick. Was it more efficient than having a few dozen skeletons carry him around? No, not really. But Tyron strongly felt that he’d created his minions for fighting, not carrying him about as if they were cattle.

His new, more sophisticated platform was certainly more menacing, the six angled legs arching up before they bent sharply back to the ground, giving them an angular, sharp feel. It had taken a long, long time for him to work out the correct configuration and weave for these types of limbs, and to be honest, his work was still rough. Without the guidance of the Unseen, he’d been flying blind, and it showed. His early versions had been bad enough to throw him off after a few steps. Now at least it was smooth enough for him to properly conduct rituals and cast spells without losing his balance.

Once he stepped onto the surface, he commanded the legs to rise up, lifting him above the throng. Although it was perfectly possible for him to see through the eyes of his minions, there was something about being above the fray that made it so much easier to conduct the battle. Perhaps he needed to become more comfortable working through mediums rather than using his own senses, detaching himself from his horde. For now, he was satisfied with this method, even though it made him a blindingly obvious target.

A combination of mages and shield-bearing skeletons were assembled around him, led by some of his strongest wights and demi-liches, his personal guard. Even so, he was very exposed. Thankfully, the spider-like legs were able to lower him down in a pinch, getting him closer to ground level where the shields could cover him.

Surrounded by thousands of skeletons, Tyron felt a deep sense of satisfaction watching his horde advance. Each and every single one of them had been the work of his own hands for at least part of the process, a labour of thousands and thousands of hours. To see it come together in the form of massed ranks of marching undead was pleasing, to say the least. Perhaps he might have been a better High Mage had his Awakening gone differently, but Tyron couldn’t deny any longer that he was quite suited to be a Necromancer.

From his heightened vantage point, it wasn’t difficult to see the kin approaching, or even catch those skittering over the horizon, moving away from the horde as they scattered out over the wasteland. The sheer volume of rift-kin he was seeing spoke to the size of the rift they were closing in on. For so many to be coming through… he shuddered to think of just how much power was flowing through, corrupting the realm he called home.

Soon, it would be tamed, and if he was right, he’d be able to start to reverse the process, shrinking the rift and reducing its output. With time, the land may recover, and the naturally occurring native kin would cease to exist, starved of the magick they needed to be born. It was a project of decades, and not relevant to his quest for vengeance, but the old gods had demanded a price for their continued cooperation, and Tyron was willing to lend a hand.

He’d thought long and hard about what his uncle had said, that his mother and father had been largely uncaring of the people they saved, acting selfishly for their own benefit, but in such a way they were beloved by the people. It certainly fit Tyron’s own image of his parents. Despite everything he loved about them, he couldn’t deny their nature. After all, he was a victim of their selfishness more than anyone else. They’d been unable to set aside their wanderlust, even to raise their own child.

He could do the same, help people as he selfishly pursued his own goals. Already, his reputation had started to turn around. His skeletons worked tirelessly, helping to patrol the city ruins and keep the peace. He worked hard on the various magickal devices that provided food, warmth and water to the people. Many still blamed him for the disaster that had befallen the Western Province, while others were at least able to acknowledge his efforts at making their lives better.

If he were successful at the rift, he would be able to deliver something that the people of the Empire had never known before: hope that their world would survive. If that wasn’t enough to make him a hero, then nothing was.

Despite the number of kin, Tyron’s horde held an overwhelming numerical advantage. He held his archers back, letting them conserve ammunition while his mages unleashed their spells. Several times, large kin, lizard-ish creatures with leathery skin and massive jaws, were able to reach his lines, but his wights were able to adjust the formation, using spear-wielding skeletons to absorb the impact without getting crushed. Falling back where necessary, his undead moved like a well-disciplined army, giving and taking ground where necessary, even without his input. Thanks to the careful direction of his wights, losses were kept to a minimum as the horde continued to advance.

Kilometres were gobbled up by the untiring horde as they walked at a steady pace, only slowing when they were heavily engaged. Every now and again, Tyron was forced to intervene himself, raising his hands to cast curses or strengthen his minions. He held back from using any offensive magick unless he felt he had to in order to prevent damage to his horde. As much as possible, he wanted to feed experience to his Necromancy Class. With Bone Mage maxed out, there was nothing to gain from throwing spells around and killing kin himself. He’d just had a reminder of how painfully slow his levelling was now, and he knew he needed every drop of power he could get.

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The Empire wouldn’t leave him alone for long.

He let himself get lost in the sensation of the undead horde around him, the flickering thoughts of his wights and demi-liches as they coordinated silently to command and organise the army as they marched relentlessly. It was almost enough to distract him from the looming absurdity in the distance. Almost.

“Holy fuck, are you feeling this?!” Dove exclaimed from beside him.

At some point, the skeletal construct that contained the soul of his old mentor had crept up beside the platform, fully bedecked in his ‘finery.’ Tyron had been doing his best to ignore him as Dove seemed intent at staring into the distance.

“Yes,” he said flatly.

“It’s fucking crazy! By the holy mother’s mammaries, the amount of magick is like a joke, except even I’m not laughing!”

Reluctantly, Tyron nodded agreement. He could see it, plain as day. As attuned to magick as he now was, every step of the march felt like moving face-first into a powerful headwind. Magick poured out of the rift at an incredible rate, gushing like an unending geyser.

It wasn’t like he or Dove had never seen such concentrations of energy before, they’d both been beyond the rifts, after all. Yet seeing such a stream of arcane energy here, on their own world, was unsettling, to say the least.

“What the fuck have we been doing?” Dove laughed, a little of his old humanity showing through. “How many of my friends died to hold back the rifts, all while this thing was here puking magick faster than every rift in the Western Province put together! What was it for?!”

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The skeleton threw back his head and cackled while Tyron just shook his head.

He’d long suspected that the Five Divines hadn’t actually cared about saving the realm from its inevitable fall, yet to have such clear evidence in front of his eyes was… disturbing on a deep level. Everything the Slayers in the Empire had struggled for over thousands of years was a lie. They were never meant to succeed, had never been able to succeed.

Even Magnin and Beory, with all their power and strength, and everything they’d done, preventing multiple breaks, holding back the strongest kin almost single-handedly, none of it mattered.

While that had been happening, how many rifts, just like the one ahead, had been poisoning the world? Dozens? A hundred?

Then another thought struck him…. If that were the case, the signs of corruption should have been evident, even in the Empire. Granin was now a crystal-riddled wasteland producing its own native kin, no sign of life at all. But a mountain range away, people had been farming and living normally in the foothills below Cragwhistle. That didn’t make sense. Magick was dispersed high into the air, there was no chance it wasn’t making it over the mountains from Granin, so where was it all going?

Filled with these disturbing thoughts, the horde continued to advance on the rift, moving straight into the headwinds.

With so much magick in the air, combined with his feats and abilities, the horde moved practically for free, generating enough power on their own to avoid drawing on his power entirely. That changed whenever fighting broke out, but it was still gratifying to see just how far his push for efficiency had taken him.

A great deal of that could be thanks to the Exponential Horde feat. The more undead he had, the more power they shared between each other, the strange multiplicative effect he’d noticed so long ago. With this feat, that process was accelerated, generating more and more free energy.

He was idly attempting to calculate the amount of Death Magick being produced, but paused when he felt a slight change in the atmosphere.

“The Broken Lands are close,” he told Dove.

“Already? Holy fucking shit. They must be huge.”

Tyron issued a mental command as the horde continued to march, and soon the students were gathered just behind his platform.

“We’re coming up to the Broken Lands,” he said. “Are you all aware of what that is?”

Georg, Briss and Richard knew, obviously, but he wasn’t talking to them.

Hesitant to speak in front of him, the younger students simply nodded, nervously.

“Is anyone going to find their tongue and explain it?” he asked dryly.

He wasn’t that intimidating, was he? Come to think of it, he was standing on a spider-legged platform six feet off the ground. Perhaps he should lower it for this conversation.

“It’s an area of warped reality caused by the weakening of the Dimensional Weave and a high concentration of magick,” one of the students, an owlish-looking young man said.

“Right,” Tyron nodded. “The magick here is… particularly strong, so the warp effect will be that much more significant. Stay close and support each other. It will feel strange… which is putting it mildly… but as long as you don’t panic, you will be safe here.”

Each of the students nodded, and he raised his platform back up to continue on the march.

It didn’t take long for them to reach the border and experience the now-familiar rippling sensation as they passed from one reality into another. What greeted them on the other side was a vision of madness.

Chunks of rock the size of houses floated over the ground, discharging energy in jagged bolts that struck anything that drew near. Even here, right on the edge, Tyron could feel his senses stretching and bending. It was hard to tell left from right; the ground seemed to shift and slip beneath him, and his sense of time was already growing faint.

Had he been here for seconds, minutes? He raised his hand in front of his face and felt as if he were moving underwater.

“This is going to be a pain,” he muttered.

Then there were the kin. Large lizard monsters with ferocious jaws and claws. They roamed in packs and charged at the skeletal army the moment they saw it, desperate to snuff out any semblance of life, even from the undead.

There was still some distance to go before they made it to the meeting point with the Slayers. No choice but to push on.

“Fuck this,” Tyron muttered to himself, then raised his hands and began to speak.

He’d fight at full strength here. No chances.