Yvonne watched in stunned silence as Freidrich exploded with cataclysmic fire.
Instantaneously, her link to the human’s mind had been severed as if it had been a dry rope put to the torch, and her head pounded with every beat of her heart.
She felt the burn still lingering inside her. It had been no mortal’s doing, that much she was already certain of.
She reached out to the man with a thought;
Freidrich! Can you hear me?
The message was met with silence, but she could feel him there. Out of reach of her magic, and the feeling of her very senses being burned intensified with the attempted communion.
Through the eyes of another of the human soldiers, she could see Uther getting back onto his feet. A relief, truly, that he at least was unharmed.
She wanted to know more. Gods had seldom acted directly in ages past, and this had the stench of divinity permeating it. No demon or mage could do what she could see happening.
But she had to wait.
She redirected her attention to other, now more pressing, matters.
Anders! What is going on?
She reached out to the necromancer. She had seen him get impaled, but with his condition, and with the fact that she could still feel his presence as strong as ever, she knew he survived.
Can’t talk! I need help! Help me calm down! I need to stop the dragon!
The necromancer’s thoughts were short and frenetic, with all the hallmarks of surging adrenaline and panic. Which was odd, since the necromancer lacked the… well, everything needed for the body to produce adrenaline.
Yvonne closed her eyes and focused. She grasped at the mind of Anders with her own entirety, melding her senses with his. She could see everything he saw, feel everything he felt, and more importantly the opposite was also true.
She centered herself with meditations she had perfected over decades of study, and flooded the panicking necromancer’s mind with her own calm. Like ripples on the lake of their united mind, the panic subsided, and she could feel Anders calm down.
Thank you, Yvonne.
Yvonne smiled. You’re welcome, Anders. Now, I must return to directing the troops. Do you think your undead can cover Uther’s retreat?
As her mind untangled itself from Anders, she could hear his response in her mind. On it.
Denis had to admit he was reconsidering his life choices at this point. He was currently running through a battlefield with arrows zipping overhead and fire and stone falling to the earth around himself.
He had been aware of the pressing danger of helping Lyssia from the very first moment they had spoken, but this? It was a bit much. He had never been a fighter. Hells, he had never even been in anything more than the very rare scuffle against some bully who tried to take the rations of someone weaker than themselves until this point in his life.
And now he was running through a battlefield with mages, armored human warriors and elite Drow Praetorians.
He didn’t want to be here. More than everything, he wanted to duck into a pile of laundry or anything of the sort. Sadly, these were very scarce at the moment.
Keeping his eyes focused on the great big bulk of the undead motherfucking dragon, he kept running.
He could hear the strained panting of Orrian behind him. The old elf had been doing a surprisingly good job of keeping up with him throughout this entire ordeal, and hadn’t even slowed down as they passed behind the Human lines.
It seemed his sense of self-preservation spurred him on to great feats of endurance. And now the inky portal into the underdark started to draw close. And with it, the promise of cover from overhead threats.
Then, the dragon stopped, and Denis could see that Lyssia slid off of its’ flank and landed gracefully on the ground. Well, at least gracefully for someone in her current condition.
Denis ran up along the dragon’s left flank, placing it between himself and the battle lines.
He stopped close to Lyssia, and had to fight the burning muscles in his legs to avoid collapsing on the spot.
“You… alright?” his question was laboured, forced out in the midst of his own gasps for air.
“I’m fine.” She responded, and looked back at the dragon. “Anders! You doing okay?”
It seemed impossible that her friend would be alive, and Denis had already begun trying to formulate a way of saying such when he could hear the ripping of cloth on the other side of the bulky abomination.
Then, moments later, the necromancer emerged from around the Dragon with a hole in his robes.
No blood.
A chill went down Denis’ spine as he saw that. No blood. And he didn’t see anything red.
No flesh?
What…
“What are you?” Orrian’s voice emerged from behind him.
The Necromancer froze in the middle of giving the Drow a thumbs-up.
“He can’t talk. And this isn’t really the place to discuss such things. Don’t you agree?” Lyssia’s voice held a stern tone to it, unlike anything Denis had really heard from her before. It didn’t feel like opposing her will right now was a good idea.
“What is he? This! This should be impossible for a single person!” Orrian exclaimed, waving his hand from the dragon and then off onto the battlefield where more undead were shambling through the streets.
“I’ve served on the eastern frontier! I’ve seen battles against necromancers many times! But never anything even close to this! And now you don’t even die!”
The elf sounded terrified. There was an unmistakable quiver in his voice.
“Show me your face.”
The necromancer didn’t act.
“Show me your face, damn you!”
The necromancer and Lyssia exchanged a look, and then the necromancer’s hand moved to the brim of his hood, and slowly pulled it back.
Denis felt his heart beating in his throat as he saw what lurked beneath.
He had heard stories, but… it was impossible, right?
He could hear Orrian wheeze between clenched teeth. ”Litch.”
“Gods…” Denis’ found himself saying. He had seen the necromancer’s minions, but this… this was something else.
The face was a withered layer of skin pulled taut against a jawless skull. One eye socket filled with the glass replica of an eye, and the scalp was covered in the occasional wisp of hair where the bone didn’t lay bare.
It was scarce more than a skeleton.
Yet it stood. Yet it looked straight at him. With no true eyes.
It was a dead thing that had raised all the undead. That controlled a reanimated dragon.
It made him feel sick to the very core of his being.
“Helios have mercy on my soul.” he could hear Orrian say.
“What have you done, child, to ally yourself with a priest of Rashaken?!”
Denis’ could see the necromancer flinch at the name.
“What have you done, child, to ally yourself with a priest of Rashaken?!”
Anders felt a dirty sense of joy at the mention of the name, accompanied with memories of myrrh, incense and blood. This initial wave was suppressed immediately, and replaced with the feeling of unspeakable dread,
Rashaken. He knew that name.
He knew that name well. But he didn’t want to. Its’ mention had removed the lid of more memories of a past he very much wished would be gone forever.
Gods… what had he done?
Who was he?
He felt unsteady, and his hand reached out to find the unshakable wall of dead meat that was the Dragon.
“Anders?” Lyssia’s hand was warm, even through the sleeves of his robe.
“And you! Orrian! Stop whatever you’re doing to Anders this instance.”
“Lyssia, please, step away from that… thing.” the elf’s voice still held a tinge of desperate fear.
That… thing?
Anders grabbed at the hood, pulling it up to cover his face once more.
People had been scared at seeing his visage in the past. But this? This was new.
Anders backed away from Lyssia, retreating back towards the abyss of the subterranian tunnels.
A lich? Is that what he was?
Did the elf know? What more did the elf know?
Anders dreaded such insight. He didn’t want to know what he was. He didn’t want to know who he had been. He didn’t want to know who Rashaken was, or why he knew the name so well.
But he was most afraid that he already knew.
He didn’t know Rashaken like one would know the name of a friend. No, he knew it like one would only know their own.
He was Rashaken. Or had been. Or was he still? Was that thing… that man from his memories lurking just beneath the surface of his being? Waiting to rise up and take over?
He was afraid.
And what scared him now wasn’t the threat of death. No, death would be preferable to reverting back into that monster.
Anders turned and ran back into the tunnels.