hotmtlnovel Chapter 106: A Necromancer’s Deception
Chapter 106: A Necromancer’s Deception
Chapter 106: A Necromancer’s DeceptionSethSeth trudged onward, his legs in excruciating pain both from the unrelenting pace set by their tormentor seated high upon his zombie horse and from the encroaching blight that was progressively eating him from within. He hadn’t found many opportunities to check – the collar’s compulsion was seldom relaxed for any reason – but when he had finally rolled up his trouser leg, he had been horrified to find black weeping sores and withering flesh.
He had spent several days with his skeleton minders, distributing blighted patchwork horrors throughout the forest, and what the abominations were doing to the trees and animals was identical to what seemed to be happening to his legs. He walked because he had no choice, enduring the agony because he was not permitted to do otherwise.
One of the other captured youths had collapsed yesterday when they had finally left the forest and begun to cross the plains. His leg had been entirely withered away by the blight, and the necromancer had simply ripped his wailing soul from his body with some horrific dark spell, raising his instantly dead body as a zombie instead. Seth’s mind had fled to its dark hole for several hours, and after that, he had resolved not to fall under any circumstances.
He had finally learned the name of their tormentor, the necromancer. The Dryad, who was being dragged along the path by her bindings behind one of the zombies had finally woken. She had woken screaming, desolate wails filled with heart-wrenching loss and betrayal, until Alexander had the zombie beat her unconscious.
When she finally awoke a second time, she cursed Alexander, trying to use her magic, but whatever poison he had fed her seemed to make her creations fizzle, or come out already withered and dead. Now, she was tied to a post in their camp, simply weeping. She seemed weak, lost, and inconsolable – and Seth found within his heart a wrenching guilt.
“I’m going to be busy, do not disturb me. And don’t leave the camp.” Alexander commanded, addressing the remaining prisoners, all of them wearing the same collars, sporting the black marks of the blight infection. He had called them his sacrifice gang and instructed them to be joyful that they would be killed to further his power. He seemed to actually believe he was doing them a great service by allowing them to serve him with their lives. Seth had never loathed someone with as much passion as he did Alexander. Gran always used to say that nobody in this world was truly evil – that everybody had redeeming features. he thought, grateful only that she was gone and did not have to endure this alongside him.
As he left, Seth suddenly realized Alexander had made a rare mistake. Seldom did he leave them unsupervised without a command like ‘don’t move’. His instruction, ‘don’t leave the camp,’ left Seth with a surprising amount of freedom. Immediately, he reached for his collar, but as normal, it was as if his hands refused to budge past a certain point. Similarly, he couldn’t even move when he tried to free his companions.
He glanced around the camp, careful in case the necromancer was still watching, but he found no sign of him. Their camp, such as it was, had been established in the remains of a logging town smaller even than Lyton – the former inhabitants already culled to feed Alexander Gray’s growing army. There were five crude stone buildings, one of which was the mill. Careful not to attract too much attention, he walked over to the larger building,