Chapter 22 - The Fall

Malfus stood at the edge of the pit, looking down at the carnage. All the usable corpses had been removed by the other zombies, raised, and sent off to the fight already. Only butchered pink meat, bits of bone, teeth, a few strands of intestine, pieces of armor, and broken weapons remained. A glistening red ichor covered everything. The ground, even the walls, were wet with it. The sides of the pit were covered in claw marks from unsuccessful escape attempts. The ground was churned and trodden into bloody mud. A gnoll’s severed arm clung to one of the spikes, dangling there and dripping blood like a macabre ornament made from meat.

As a necromancer, Malfus had seen plenty of dead bodies, and in many different levels of decay. He’d seen them dissected, seen the insides of them more times than he could count, and he was far from squeamish at the sight of a little blood, but this was a lot, even for him. This was by far the most gruesome scene Malfus had ever experienced in his life. Malfus took a deep breath to try to calm his queasy stomach, but it was hard when there was someone’s ear right below him, and next to that he was pretty sure he could see half of someone’s face staring up at him. Just the skin, like a masquerade mask, floating on the surface of a bloody, bubbling, gory pool. Malfus tried to remind himself that such feelings of queasiness were quite unbecoming of a necromancer. Although he still thought he’d never get the coppery smell of blood out of his nose.

All that death concentrated in one spot. A part of him felt worse knowing that he was the primary party responsible for creating this site of so much death and carnage. He hoped that this trap at least saved the lives of some of the soldiers.

Atop all the visible carnage, the pit was filled with a dense fog of invisible energy that roiled inside the pit like a fetid bog. Energies that only Malfus could see. There was so much death concentrated in one spot that the very fabric between the planes was starting to fray, leaving a fissure that opened to the plane of death itself, letting raw, entropic force seep through unbound.

Malfus closed his eyes and grasped the rod tighter. He could feel it vibrating, throbbing with excitement, as if it knew what was about to happen, knew what was coming.

The gem was glowing bright red, like a hungry coal. The star pattern inside the ruby moved around like the iris of an eye, focused on the pit below. There were motes of light moving around inside the gem, coalescing into almost identifiable shapes before breaking apart again into meaningless blobs. The shapes reminded Malfus of something, but he couldn’t quite place his finger on it before they broke apart again.

The distant screams of the dying brought him back to the present, reminding him of what was at stake with each passing second.

Better hurry, no time to waste.

He could feel the gnawing, impatient hunger in the rod, but wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t know if it needed an activation word or arcane phrase, so he just shrugged his shoulders and pointed it at the pit and hoped that it would figure out the rest.

An unseen wind picked up at Malfus’s feet, whipping at the hem of his coat. There was a faint, disembodied sucking sound, and then Malfus could feel it drink hungrily, soaking up the invisible oily energy. Small black sparks winked in and out of existence while coruscating violet rays warped the air around the rod. Waves of force wrapped around Malfus like a cocoon, whipping at his long hair.

Malfus was amazed at how much the rod was able to store. Before, Malfus had just pulled slivers at a time from the pool, taking small sips of the cancerous death energy before redirecting it into one of the empty bodies. Malfus just allowed the energy to pass through him, never holding it for any great length of time, and never more than his protective wards could handle. This rod was just drinking it in, storing enough energy to kill a single person or animate a body tens or even hundreds of times over.

He felt the protective magics of his defensive wards crackle and strain under the sheer amount of raw necromantic energy the rod was absorbing. Malfus felt cold waves pass over and through him, leaving his body tingling and numb in some spots where the negative energy was too much for his wards to contain. He tried not to think about the side effects as the dangerous, warping forces passing unrestricted through his body on its way to the rod.

A heaving crash rumbled through the earth. Malfus had to steady himself before he nearly tumbled forward into the pit. The ground shook so hard the gnoll’s arm grasping onto the spike fell back into the pit with a wet plop.

That’s enough. Let’s go.

Malfus sucked in a breath of air through clenched teeth, then started walking back toward the collapsed tower, back to where the giant’s corpse lie. He was hounded by the constant crash of battle. The tempestuous clash of steel, crashing like the waves of an ocean, ebbing and flowing in tides like the sea. Occasionally, there would be gaps of silence in the fury of noise. And a single sound would be carried to his ear with astounding clarity, like a leaf floating on a stream. A single scream, cry, or shout and nothing else, before the tumultuous tide of noise came roaring back in.

Malfus could still feel connected to every single zombie he had raised. Each one, in the middle of fighting. Any identifiable lines of combat had all but disappeared. All the information coming back to Malfus was just a chaotic mess. The zombies were managing to stop the gnolls from completely overrunning the fort, but just barely. The gap in the wall was still narrow and there were hundreds more gnolls outside, waiting to get in. The giant continued to tear and rip apart the wall, letting more gnolls inside every second.

Malfus quickened his pace, he was nearly there now. He rounded the corner of a building, then froze dead in his tracks. Three figures stood a dozen paces away from him on his path to the fallen tower. Three gnolls surrounding something on the ground they were kicking and stabbing with their weapons.

Malfus hesitated at first, but then gripped the rod tighter as he approached the group. Don’t have time for this. He felt the rod throbbing next to him. Reassuring him of his power. He could feel it in his bones, surer than anything. Malfus gripped the rod tighter as he approached the group. They turned to face him, but he had already begun chanting, a spell already on Malfus’s lips.

The gnolls raised their weapons, then they took a step towards Malfus. Malfus kept walking, and continued chanting, staring right past the gnolls as if they weren’t even there. Before they could take another step towards the approaching wizard, three bolts of black lightning pulsed from his hand.

The gnoll’s howling shrieks melted together into a gurgling, mindless wail. They aged and withered before Malfus’s eyes. Their eyeballs sizzled and melted away, followed by their meat, organs, and soft tissue. All of it turned to dust, just leaving skeletons with mouths frozen open in shocked terror. Tendons and ligaments holding the bones standing, arms and legs moving comically, like a morbid version of a street performer’s marionettes, before collapsing to the ground in heaps of bone a few seconds later.

Malfus had to stifle laughing out loud at the vulgar display of power he had just unleashed. Never had he channeled that much raw, negative energy at once.

If only there had been someone here to see it. If only some of his old classmates or instructors could see his command over the arcane now, even if it was from a forbidden school of magic. They had said he’d never amount to anything. I’d show them now, if they were here.

A gurgling groan caught his attention as he began to walk past the pile of bones.

Malfus looked down and saw the bloody body next to the gnolls start moving. There was so much blood Malfus was shocked the poor soldier was still alive. Red blood contrasted by alabaster skin. The soldier was trying to hold his guts in from falling out on the ground in a pile next to him.

“Help me, please.” The soldier mouthed, but no words came out, only the choking gurgle of blood. He looked up at Malfus desperately, expecting Malfus to somehow have the answer to the soldier’s problem with his exposed intestines.

“Sorry. It’s already too late for you… You’re already dead.”

The soldier looked at him. The fear froze on his face and he seemed to die right there. A look of horror sculpted onto his face like it was etched in marble.

Malfus bent over the dead and raised them quickly, the three gnoll-skeletons and the zombie with intestines trailing behind it. He finished adding the new strands to his web. Then he sent them off into combat, while he continued toward the fallen tower.

********

The screams of the wounded and dying filled the air. Morten knew the tide of battle was turning for the worse by the second. He looked at his shovel and wondered what good a few more dead bodies were going to do if that necromancer didn’t hurry and raise the giant. If he didn’t do something soon, there were going to be plenty of dead bodies over by the wall. Morten kept running anyway. He gripped the shovel tighter as his breath came in ragged gasps.

His mind wanted to be anywhere other than here. It kept drifting off, and he couldn’t stop thinking of home. Home. It seemed so far away now. He wondered if he would ever see his family or farm again. None of this was worth it. He had no idea he was signing up for any of this. He’d give anything to have a chance at being a farmer again. If he could just survive the night, then he’d be done with this soldiering business.

He thought about sneaking off if he survived the night, but then sighed. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought of this before, but with the gnolls out here in the Farlands, it was just too dangerous to try to run. There was far too much inhospitable land between here and anything that was close to civilization. From private to garrison commander, they were trapped here to the man.

“There, there they are.” Morten saw the row of makeshift grave markers sticking up from the ground. Nothing more than a few simple sticks tied together with the shape of a diamond at the top, the blinded eye of Vesenia. Morten caught his breath, then forced himself to run the last few steps there.

Mounds of fresh dirt marked where he had buried the dead only two nights prior. He could still remember seeing the Inquisitor and the necromancer walking by while he’d been burying his fallen comrades. Victims of yet another raid from the gnolls. He’d buried so many people he had gotten to know in his time out here… his comrades. He felt a guilty pit in his stomach now that he stood above them, shovel in hand, after they’d been buried and given their last rites… all so they could be raised to fight again as undead. Morten wasn’t sure how he’d feel about that in the same situation. He tried to push it from his mind, then he kicked over the first grave marker and his shovel bit into the dirt of the shallow grave beneath his feet.

It wasn’t long before he hit something. The jaw of someone buried underneath. Morten winced. “Sorry.”

Morten gingerly uncovered the dirt around the body. Luckily, they hadn’t buried them very deep that night, far too many for them to all get proper burials. Morten cleared away more dirt and saw it was Kearns. Morten remembered when Kearns had helped him fix his crossbow once. He was a loud one, but always had a joke to tell. Now his face turned bluish-purple and was a swollen mockery of Morten’s memories. Morten tried not to think about it as he finished uncovering the rest of the body, then moved to the next grave. How long had he been stationed here? Had it been a year already? How many friends had he seen die in that time? How many more would he see?

Morten kicked over the next marker to Vesenia, then started digging. He was so focused on the task at hand he never saw the black-cloaked figure walking up behind him, silent as a whisper melting from the shadows.

There was a blur of movement. Morten felt a stinging pain in his hand. The shovel clattered to the ground next to him.

“Where is he?” A voice behind him said, as cold, hard, and sharp as the knife’s edge now pressed against his throat.

Morten swallowed. His face felt hot, and his ears were ringing as he tried to think of what to say. He wanted to be brave, but being bravery is worth less than dirt with a knife already pressed against your throat. It was also particularly hard to be brave when you’re already standing in a shallow grave.

“If you kill him…” Morten stopped as the knife bit deeper into his throat.

“Where… is… he?” Any remnants of patience faded from his voice.

“By the fallen tower. H-he went to raise the giant.”

“Vesenia, thanks you for your honesty.” Morten breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the knife begin to release from his neck.

“I would have spared you for turning over the heretic’s location, but I can’t turn a blind eye to this sacrilege of Vesenia’s fallen. You are in league with a greater evil than you know. Vesenia won’t turn her blind eye to your sacrilege to the sanctity of her dead.”

Steel flashed in the moonlight. Morten felt a searing pain trickling from his throat. He couldn’t breathe. It reminded him of the time he had fallen in the lake as a child and thought he was going to drown. He remembered the helplessness from that moment. How long it lasted. Until his father reached into the darkness and saved him. There was no being saved this time. All he could taste was blood. He gurgled and then watched the stars and night sky go reeling above him. Then he was on his back, writhing in the dirt. He clutched at his throat, trying to staunch the blood slipping between his fingers. He saw the black specter standing above him stare down at him for a second, before disappearing.

Morten rolled over and saw Kearns staring back at him. His hooded eyelids covering opaque eyes. He had this strange look of knowing, his dead eyes filled with a secret knowledge he was about to share with Morten.

Morten panicked at first, but then felt the reassuring weight of inevitability. It came tinged with a bitter taste of disappointment. He had wanted to be so much more than this, but it also promised a release from the pain… and rest. He didn’t picture his life ending like this, but he doubted anyone’s life ever does. Morten let out a shallow gurgle of a laugh as he felt his toe wiggle back out from his sock. Couldn’t even go into the afterlife with his sock on properly, but he was so very tired now. He could almost picture the farm back home as he closed his eyes.

********

“Hold the bloody lines!”

Commander Peshka shouted for order, but he knew the truth of it… there were no more lines. In front of him was a sea of bodies smashing against one another, boots stamping on the ground, and the incessant clash of metal. Shouts of anger, cries of pain, and the howling yips of the gnolls grew to a dull roar. Somewhere distantly, Goren shouted orders. Although who could even hear over all this racket? In all his years of military service, Peshka had never seen a battle so chaotic. He could barely even tell the undead from the living at this point.

The gnolls were trickling in through the gap in the wall like sand from an hourglass. Peshka knew it was only a matter of time before they’d be overrun completely. His men and the necromancer’s undead were barely holding the gnolls back. There were still plenty of gnolls making it into the fort. Some probably slipping behind them this very second, tightening the noose around their necks.

As he walked along the perimeter of the battle, he stared at the giant looming ominously over the wall, trying to think of what they were going to do to stop that monstrosity. It was thankfully, still behind the wall. There was enough room in the gap for it to step over now, but not without trampling scores of gnolls before making it to the soldiers. The giant bellowed, then smashed against the wall again, shaking the earth from its furious rampage.

“Where even is that bloody necromancer?” Peshka looked around the battlefield but saw no sign of the weasely necromancer and continued grumbling. “He was of more use when he still had the chains on. Where the hell is he even at? Too good to die with the rest of us? Probably hiding, no doubt.”

Peshka clutched at his stomach. His forced sobriety was beginning to take its toll on the aging commander. He’d give anything for a little bit of liquid courage right now. He wished more than anything for a bottle of some strong Baskavian brandy in his hand. Just to stop the shakes. His stomach was still gurgling and felt just as foul now as it did with wine sloshing around inside of it, so what was the point of this sobriety, anyway?

A wet crunch took Peshka’s attention from the thought of alcohol. A soldier right in front of him let out a gurgle as a gnoll’s spear exploded through the back of his head like it was a ripe melon. Bright crimson blood and gore sprayed all over Peshka’s polished enamel breastplate.

Peshka’s mouth opened, but before he could shout, two undead gnolls rushed in. They tackled the gnoll with the spear, taking it to the ground. Peshka heard the sound of tearing flesh and the howling yelps of the gnoll over the rest of the fighting before they faded away.

Peshka shook his head as he wiped the blood dripping from his face. It was a disgrace having to rely on these vile undead like this, but he had to admit, they had their advantages over the living. They were three times more resilient than his soldiers. They also fought on through wounds that would be mortal for a man without faltering. They showed no change in their morale, even amidst the superior numbers of the gnolls. They fought without fear of injury, allowing them to land more killing blows by fighting without regard for their own safety. Each and every gnoll still had to overcome their initial shock from seeing the undead. Sometimes that initial surprise was the deciding factor in the outcome. Peshka shuddered as the zombie leapt at another gnoll, ripping out its throat. He was just glad they were on his side.

Even still, it didn’t take a military commander to realize they were on the losing side of the battle. And that’s before the giant had done any real attacking. He knew they were losing unless something could be done to change the tide back in their favor.

Out of nowhere, a rusty sword came swinging in at Peshka’s head. Peshka ducked just in time to save his receding hairline. The swing still came close enough for him to feel the wind from it.

“Watch where you’re bloody swinging that thing!”

Peshka looked up. The ranks of soldiers he had thought were insulating him from the fighting had suddenly become gnolls. Lots of them.

Before he could think, Peshka’s broadsword was already in his hand. Another swing came in. Peshka parried it with speed from his aging muscles that surprised even himself.

If the reflexes of his youth were the reward for forced sobriety, perhaps it wasn’t so horrible a thing after all. Although, the splitting headache was still begging him to reconsider. Shifting bodies behind the gnoll pressed forward. Peshka saw his opening as the gnoll stumbled. He swung his broadsword in an overhead arc. His blade cleaved into the gnoll’s collarbone. The gnoll howled in surprise, falling to its knees. Peshka put his boot on the gnoll’s chest then pushed until it slid off his blade.

Another gnoll loomed to his side. Peshka turned, but knew he was moving too slow. Peshka swallowed, beginning to accept that this would be the valiant last few moments of his illustrious military career.

The tip of a spear came lancing in. Peshka sidestepped and tried to deflect the blow. He raised the tip of his sword, offering a feeble defense. The spear tip bounced off his sword and caught on his rows of medals. He saw his campaign medal from DeGuallis, his Valiant Fraternal Order of Calvarys, and his medal for Heroism in the Battle of Feris, all torn from his chest before the spear ripped into the side of his arm.

“You bastard!” Peshka growled in pain. The spear disappeared back within the fray of bodies as soon as it come. Peshka watched as his medals were trampled into the mud a second later. He grunted and took his fury out on the closest gnoll. He slashed and howled like a madman. His sword cleaved the gnoll’s arm to the bone. Before Peshka could finish the job, he was rewarded for his efforts with a blow to the side of his breastplate. The shiny piece of metal deflected the hammer’s blow, but not without sustaining a very unsightly scratch that he knew would never polish out.

Peshka fell backward wheezing, but there was a press of bodies behind him that kept him from falling to the ground. Peshka turned to look, but the inhuman growl of a zombie-gnoll behind him raised the hairs on his neck. The zombie charged forward and lunged at the gnoll in front of Peshka, taking it to the ground. It was hard to remember that these monsters were on your side when your every instinct made you want to run or hit them.

“Look out!” Another voice behind Peshka shouted. A spear came flying over Peshka’s shoulder, impaling another gnoll in front of him in the chest.

Peshka clutched his sword as he fell back behind the row of soldiers and zombies that pushed forward to fill the gap. He gasped for air as he adjusted his dented breastplate, then cursed as he saw the cut on his arm still seeping blood. More soldiers and undead filled the gap that had opened up, pushing the gnolls back. Peshka’s sigh of relief caught in his throat, he looked up just in time to see a section of the wall tumbling from the sky. It crashed a dozen paces away from him. Cries and shouts of surprise ended abruptly as soldiers, undead, and gnolls alike were flattened underneath. Peshka was thrown back and knocked on his rump from the force of the impact.

“Gods bloody dammit!”

He heard the giant laughing from behind the wall. Peshka had no idea what to do about the giant, but maybe there was another way. He wondered if that albino gnoll was somewhere out there with the giant behind the wall.

He looked over his shoulder and saw the horses still tied up against the wall in the distance. “It worked in DeGaullis.” Peshka muttered to himself. Then he began looking around for a few good soldiers that knew how to ride.

*********

Malfus stood by the edge of the cliff, rod still thrumming in his hand. He closed his eyes and focused. Immediately, he could sense the broken bodies of the soldiers in the tower right below his feet. Beyond that, he could feel the body of the giant lying broken on the rocks below. He could feel the empty vessel, waiting to be claimed. The only chance of salvation for the men that remained yet alive in the fort.

He knew something was different this time. He could feel it. The rod was awake now, not dormant like before. The rod seemed ready, excited even. The cross of the star inside the ruby focused on the giant’s corpse below, as if in anticipation of what was coming next.

The rod wasn’t the only thing that had changed. He could feel something different within himself as well. More certain, more confident. He could feel the energy from the rod surging through him, the force rippling the air around him. He had never felt so much power before, nor commanded so many dead at once.

Malfus was amazed at how much quieter it was out here on this isolated side of the fort. It was almost peaceful. The battle seemed so far away. It was only his connection to the undead that reminded him of the soldiers dying every second, spurring him on with a blistering sense of urgency.

No rest for the weary. Malfus was grateful for the quiet as he turned his complete focus to the giant’s rotting corpse below. He began chanting the ancient words from the dead language for the necromantic spell. The sharp-syllabic words rebounded from the canyon below, sounding hauntingly powerful as Malfus heard them repeated back.

He held out the rod and closed his eyes as he continued chanting the words of the spell. He could feel waves of entropic energy emanate from the rod, flowing through him and into the vessel below. Even the massive amount of animus energy that the rod was channeling to raise the giant was a mere fraction of all the power the rod had absorbed from the pit.

He concentrated on the web in the back of his mind, re-weaving the strands of his undead to make room for the cord that would connect him to the giant. The thought of controlling that much raw physical power sent a tingle down Malfus’s spine that made him shudder. The corners of Malfus’s lips twisted into a grin as he continued casting the spell.

Sweat beaded on Malfus’s forehead as he concentrated on the ritual, trying to focus on the spell instead of the ecstatic feeling from the unspoken promise of power the giant’s corpse offered him.

Then he stopped cold. The final words of the spell froze in his throat.

The edge of a knife against your neck will make you do that.

Another hand gripped him firmly by the wrist of the hand holding the rod, interrupting the spell. The press of a body against his held him dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. Malfus felt the rocks from his boot skittering off the edge of the cliff. Malfus looked down and saw the long drop to the giant’s corpse directly below him.

“Looks like your little friend was right about me being able to find you here.” A familiar voice whispered in his ear.

Malfus swallowed as he wondered what fate befell Morten. Although the Inquisitor left little room for doubt. Poor bastard.

“Oh… fancy running into you here. Come here for the view as well?”

The blade bit into his throat. Malfus felt a drop of blood run down his neck.

“No more sarcasm.” Malfus felt the hand push him closer to the cliff’s edge. “Not unless that’s what you want your last words to be. My patience has run dry.”

Malfus swallowed and said nothing. Have to think. Have to just calm down and think. There was no way he could cast anything like this. Even the simplest of spells would require a few words too many with a knife against his throat, and it was even harder with his target behind him and a cliff right in front. Malfus stayed silent, concentrating as he cycled through the threads at the back of his mind. All his undead were all so far away and in the middle of a growing battle. There was no way any of them would make it here in time. Perhaps… You will have to do. Just need to buy some time.

Malfus tried to think of something to say to stall, to buy some time, but the voice behind him continued.

“This is far from ideal… far from what I wanted. I wanted to be there when they tortured the truth from you. Wanted to be there when they ripped the confessions from your miserable hide… But I guess I will have to settle for my own justice instead of Vesenia’s.”

“Why? What do you want from me? I’ve done nothing but pursue my own studies. I haven’t harmed you, I haven’t harmed anyone. And yet, you’ve persisted on taking everything from me.”

The Inquisitor let out a wry hollow laugh and Malfus felt his grip tighten around his wrist. “Haven’t harmed anyone… Why, you insolent whelp… You have the audacity to complain about what I’ve taken from you? Do you have any idea what you’ve taken from me?” The Inquisitor rolled the words around in his mouth like they were a fine wine, his voice seething with anger.

Malfus swallowed. This was the first time he’d ever heard any emotion in the Inquisitor’s otherwise hollow and monotone voice. It scared him. The Inquisitor took a moment to compose himself before he continued. “Do you know how much willpower it has taken for me to wait this long without killing you?” The Inquisitor hissed in Malfus’s ear as the knife bit harder into his throat.

“Why?” Malfus squawked. “Why do you want to kill me? Why do you want to ruin my life? Who am I to you? All this in the name of your silly religion?”

“You… you were the missing apprentice from the magic academy in Akkadia, no? The failure of a student who washed out of the academy then fled… Seven years. I’ve been hunting you for seven years now.”

Confusion crept across Malfus’s features. “So? Since when is it the job of the Vesenian Inquisition to hunt down renegade apprentices?”

“You fled…” The Inquisitor continued as if Malfus wasn’t even there. “Because you murdered my daughter.”

Malfus’s heart skipped a beat, and his breath froze in his chest as the dawning revelation set in. Memories of that night crashed back into his mind like a hammer’s blow. He could picture Kaylee’s face even still. Her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, her raven hair. Their similarities were striking. He cursed himself for not having seen it before.

“No, it wasn’t like that. It was…” He tried to think of what to say, but the shock of it hit Malfus as hard as a blow to the back of the head. It had been an accident. It wasn’t his fault. Still, what choice was he left with but to run? How do you explain that to someone’s father? What could he possibly say that wouldn’t end in his death? He had to think of something. He needed just a little longer.

“Her death… Kaylee’s death was an accident.” Malfus’s cheeks burned as soon as the words left his mouth.

“An accident?! You liar! How dare you even say her name?” The Inquisitor’s grip tightened until Malfus winced. The Inquisitor wrenched his wrist around, forcing him closer to the edge.

That’s not working. Need to think of something else.

“Listen… let me go. Let’s talk this through. I’ll tell you what happened. Besides… if you kill me, it will release the undead from their tether. They’ll kill everyone. Gnoll and human alike, they won’t care.”

“Neither do I.” Malfus felt the knife tighten against his throat and a drop of blood drip down his neck. “That will be their atonement.”

Malfus closed his eyes. Just a little closer.

The crow swooped low, silent as a wraith, tucking its wings into its sides, then collided with the Inquisitor with the force of a thrown brick. The Inquisitor cried out in surprise and Malfus felt his grip loosen. Malfus tried not to fall as rocks skittered over the edge of the cliff. He wobbled his arms to maintain his balance and ducked low, managing to slip out of the Inquisitor’s grasp. Then Malfus raised his rod in the air, a spell crackling on his lips.

There was a whoosh of air against Malfus’s face and then a heavy thud. He looked down and saw a dagger sticking from his chest, blood oozing from the wound. He gasped and tried to breathe, but it felt like there was an anvil on top of his chest. The spell fizzled on his lips. None of it seemed to matter now anyway, not with a dagger sticking from his chest. He couldn’t even make sense of it all. It had happened so fast. He tasted blood in his mouth.

After the horrible realization of it, came the pain. Real pain.

You experience a lifetime of pain for practice, but none of the injuries, punches, beatings can prepare you for pain like this. He could feel every inch of the sharpened steel that punctured his flesh, the ice-cold steel burnt like a hot coal. He thought shock was supposed to have kicked in, but all he could feel was blistering agony.

“Ugnhhhh.”

Malfus tried to grab at the dagger, but his vision blurred, and he started to see double. He took a step backward, then he felt the ground give from beneath his feet. He felt the wind rushing around him suddenly. Was he falling? Cold wind ripped at his clothes and hair, roaring in his ears. His limbs flailed uselessly. One hand grasping at empty air, the other clinging desperately to the rod.

He tried to scream as the ground raced toward him, but all that came out of his mouth was a wet croak. He landed hard with a sickening crunch, splat on the giant’s empty eye socket below. Stones clattered and dust settled around him. His body was searing hot pain. Jagged, mindless pain. Right as it became more than he thought he could bear, it started ebbing away from him, lessening in throbbing waves. Receding like the ocean’s tide and replaced with darkness. Malfus tried to grasp onto it. Tried to hold on to the pain, but there was nothing left to hold on to. He felt the pain leaving him. There was only darkness now and the promise of release. The only thing he could see aside from the darkness was the glowing red ember of the rod’s gem, pulsing and flickering next to him. Burning as bright as a setting sun.