Feral Mage 3: Chapter 33

Duchess Frozenveil awoke to a loud explosion that shook her tent. She stared up at the darkness of the tent’s canopy as the screams of dying men, dust, and smoke greeted her. Quickly, she stood, only pausing long enough to wrap the silk sheet of her bed around her nude body before exiting through the tent flap.

The camp was roaring with activity, men shouting and running toward the temple where the sealed entrance was now open, surrounded by rubble, fire, and dead and dying men.

They made it through!

She smiled and made a few steps toward the temple's door, eager to hurry and claim what she had been seeking for years. She stopped herself, remembering her current state of dress and the fact that she did not have the false phylactery or keys. Instead, she turned and waved to one of the guards.

“What happened?” she asked, clutching the silken sheet to her body tightly.

“The last layer of the sealed entrance was a trap, my Queen,” the guard said. “The last wall of bricks had a hidden glyph built into it. The moment we struck through, the whole wall exploded, killing five men and wounding over a dozen. We are trying to save those we can now with the healers we have.”

She glanced at the destruction by the entrance, seeing men rushing to the bodies and the familiar glow of healing magic. The sobs of injured and dying men filled the camp. She frowned and looked toward the dark just past the perimeter of their camp, where the ruined city and woods were.

“Stop the healers and slit the throats of the injured,” she said to the soldier. “We are making too much noise. The undead will be here soon if we don’t silence them.”

He paled at her words and hesitated. She narrowed her eyes at him, and after a moment, he saluted her.

“It will be done, my queen,” he answered, his tone bitter.

She turned and made her way back into her tent. Once the flap was closed, she discarded the sheet and quickly dressed, gathered the keys and false phylactery. She smiled as she stared down at the swirling black matter inside the crystal. Seeing all the promises it held for her.

So close I can taste the power.

When she exited the tent, the camp was silent. A few of the men gave her looks of disdain, but only those on the edges of her camp. Many still held the loyalty in their gaze toward her. She approached one of her more trusted guards.

“I want you to assemble a party to enter the temple with me,” she commanded.

The guard saluted and moved toward the other soldiers, calling out names. It took only a few seconds before he had gathered a group of half a dozen for her that consisted of spearman, mages, and armored knights.

That was when the sentries sounded the alarm, and Frozenveil knew the first undead had been spotted. She looked toward the opening of the palisade and saw a corpse staggering toward it in the torchlight. Before it could enter, several arrows rained down on it, turning it into a pincushion. Three more undead appeared as the first collapsed to the ground. Frozenveil frowned at the sight. They didn’t have long before the undead would overwhelm the camp.

“Follow me,” she said to the party before heading toward the temple.

Other soldiers rushed to reinforce the defenses as more and more undead staggered out of the darkness of the ruined city and forest toward the camp.

As Frozenveil’s party neared the temple, the knights and spearmen formed a protective barrier around her before they entered. The air was stale, but it was the sweetest thing she had smelled in years. It was the scent of life to her.

“Stay alert,” one of the knights said. “I doubt the glyph wall was the only trap they set.”

Their torches shone light on the statues of the Divine that filled the hallways of the temple as they walked through. Frozenveil realized many of them would be considered heretical now. Her gaze lingered a moment on a woman with four eyes, but gave it only a passing glance.

As they arrived in the center of the temple before the altar, there was a mound of bones littering the floor in a circle. In the center was a large black stone box with a gold and silver band around it. Frozenveil’s heart raced at the sight.

A coffin.

The knights and spearmen fanned out, slowly approaching the lich’s tomb as they scoured the room for danger by torchlight. When nothing moved to attack them and no trap was triggered, Frozenveil approached herself. She ran her hands along the polished stone, feeling the coldness of it as her hands trembled in anticipation.

No more waking to the taste of blood in my mouth.

Taking out the three keys, she laid them on the coffin along with the false phylactery. The gold and silver band met where three keyholes were located in the center of the lip of the coffin. Above the keyholes were images engraved. One depicted a snowflake, another a leaf, and the last a wave.

No more asking if today is the day my lungs will fail.

She placed the Key of Salt into the keyhole below the image of the wave and turned it. There was a click that echoed through the temple.

She held her breath at the sound, waiting for a trap to spring. As silence settled in the temple, she exhaled only to jump as shouts and screams came from the camp. She looked back toward the temple’s entrance as several of her knights and spearmen moved to guard it. A second later, Frozenveil heard them shout, followed by the screeches and growls of the undead.

I will rebuild the Winter Kingdom and restore it to its former glory.

Her hand shook as she placed the Key of Forest into its spot and turned it again. She heard the click again. The final one was the Key of Winter, and as she placed it into the keyhole, her eyes scanned the room, seeing the torchlight reflect off the statues of the Divine around her. How much different would she be from them after she did this, she wondered. Then she turned the key.

The gold and silver bands snapped away from the coffin with a click, falling to the floor. Frozenveil smiled as she moved to push the lid off the stone box. Her hand was clutching the false phylactery tightly while she recited the ritual to steal the lich’s power over and over in her mind. She had read it a hundred times, memorized every shape of the letters. All she needed to do was place it over the lich’s heart and recite a prayer to the God of Death.

As the lid started to move, she heard a final click. Searing pain pierced her gut, and she hunched over with a cry. When she looked down, she saw an iron spike sticking into her stomach. The bastards had rigged the coffin itself as a trap.

She swore, feeling blood pour from her punctured stomach onto the ground. The smell of her meal from earlier wafted from the wound, accompanied by the strong iron smell of blood and excrement. She was not going to die here, not after coming this far. Mustering her strength, she pushed the lid, sending it toppling to the floor.

She stared down at the dried corpse inside the coffin, little more than frail skin covering bones. She had always thought the Sorrowful King would be adorned in jewels and clad in armor fitting a man who brought a kingdom to its knees and forced the elves to unite in an alliance. Instead, he was unadorned except for aged linen, little more than dust.

A peasant.

She lifted the false phylactery and placed it on his chest as she heard her soldiers clash with the undead behind her. There wasn’t much time left, and she needed to hurry. Drawing a breath, she started to utter the prayer to the God of Death. Her first syllable was drowned by the rattle of bones as something grabbed her leg, pulling her down.

A husk of a vampire was climbing on top of her as it pulled itself from under the pile of bones, its tongue lapping at the bloodstains running down her dress. She tried to fight it off, beating and bashing it with her hands, but it kept her pinned as it licked at her.

Desperate, she tried to shout to her soldiers for help, but more husks were pulling themselves from the bone pile around the coffin, launching themselves at her men. Between the vampires and undead, they were soon swarmed, and as the last one’s screams faded, she realized she was alone.

“No. Not like this,” she cried as the creature’s mouth chewed on her bloodstained dress.

The vampire husk looked at her, smiling with its fangs. “You’re… our… savior.”

She had not fully processed what the husk had said when its hands reached up and grabbed hers. It ripped the crystal from her grip before pushing her aside with its recovered strength from feeding on her blood. The vampire’s bony frame stood, supporting itself by leaning against the coffin.

“My… King…” it said as it held the phylactery over the Sorrowful King’s corpse.

Its fist closed and crushed the crystal, and a burst of Death Magic was emitted from its destruction. Frozenveil’s heart sank as she saw her only hope of salvation vanish before her eyes.

She expected the vampire to turn back to her and drain the blood from her body, only for the Sorrowful King to start to move. The dried body wearing the rags of peasant’s clothes, hauling itself out of the box. Death magic coiled around him as the frail and aged skin turned youthful until a forest elf man stood before her.

“My love,” the husk said, kneeling before him.

The Sorrowful King looked to the vampire husk and, after a second, started to run his hand over the pale and fragile skin on the creature’s head.

“Samantha,” he said. “You are starved. Feast. Regrow your strength, my dear.”

The husk kissed the Sorrowful King’s hand as he pulled it away, then turned and lunged at the corpse of one of the soldiers. Frozenveil didn’t spare a look as the husk named Samantha ate her fill from the corpse. Instead, her gaze was locked on the man before her.

The Sorrowful King picked up one of the fragments from the phylactery and rolled it in his hand before looking at her.

“Who are you?” he asked.