The Sorcerer's Bane by B. V. Larson Read Free Book Online Page B

“To the north…to the priestesses?”
    “Exactly. We shall soon learn what it is these women of the Black Order intend to unleash.”
    “Why don’t we follow?”
    Therian looked at him with raised brows. “A direct stratagem, Gruum. An infinitely superior strategy would be to allow these enemies to destroy one another while watching from afar.”
    “What if they invade the city while we sit back?” Gruum asked.
    Therian heaved a sigh. “I suppose we should have a closer look.”

-10-

    When the battle did begin, Gruum was unpleasantly surprised to find they were not left out of it.
    Events began with a distant flaring of bizarre sounds and eldritch lights. First a white flash blinded everyone, as their eyes had adjusted to the gloom of the Necropolis. Moments after the flash, a rolling peal of thunder boomed. The echoing qualities of it reminded Gruum of a thunderclap at sea. An impossible wind then blew into their faces and pushed back their locks from their squinting eyes. Every man put up a hand to his shield his face, save Therian himself, who stood tall and pensive.
    “It has begun,” the King said.
    Gruum did not have time to ask him what he meant, for at that moment things began to crawl up out of every hole in the Necropolis. Dead things they were, some with vestiges of meat and clothing still clinging to them. They smelt of the sea. Ocean growths, worms, and even crabs fell from their dripping forms as they shambled closer.
    “Destroy them! Quickly now, before they outnumber us,” Therian ordered his guardsmen.
    After only a few moments of gaping in sick horror, the men surged forward and fell upon the dead. In response the growing legion of dead lifted weapons, if they had them. The rest met the onslaught with grasping fingers, lipless teeth and mindless determination.
    “Who are they, milord?” Gruum asked, his teeth gritting as he hacked and chopped.
    “Don’t you recognize them?” Therian demanded. “They are the barbarian sailors who sought to invade. We killed at sea with our war arks—and they naturally sank to the bottom. Some of our own sailors march with them as well. Anyone who perished at sea in the battle. Vosh has been busy on the sea floors, filling the underwater canyons with these servants.”
    Gruum slashed at a dead sailor who wielded a cutlass. The dead man held his weapon by the blade in the fleshless bones of his hand. The creature swung the sword like club, and managed to catch Gruum with a glancing blow to the shoulder before being cut down. Gruum kicked the remains into one of the holes, but no sooner had he dispatched sailor than another dripping corpse rose up to replace the first.
    This time he stomped upon the rising head while it gnawed at his boot. He felt a tug then, and stumbled forward. Panicked, he realized the dead thing sought to drag him into the hole. If it pulled a leg down there, would he be forced to go down with it to whence it came? Would that be a dark place at the bottom of the sea, boiling with undead?
    Gruum yanked his foot loose and slammed down the pommel of his saber, hammering a dozen times until the skull cracked open. Squirming things from the sea that had been feasting upon the brain inside splattered. The corpse sank down after that, like an eel retreating into its tunnel in the seabed.
    “Vosh has indeed been busy,” Gruum shouted to Therian, who chopped apart more dead nearby.
    “He was fat with the souls of his men and mine,” Therian said. “He’s built himself an army down there. I hope you can see now that the true villains here were those of the Red Order. They brought Vosh to Corium.”
    Gruum nodded. “They are deserving of their fate, milord. I only hope the Black Order is not equally treacherous.”
    With all the dead that had risen from nearby holes beaten down, Therian ordered them covered over by stones. The men tried to obey. They found the holes could not be covered, however, as any stones tossed within vanished to