Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 82

Quietus started arranging his undead army, composed mostly of skeletons and zombies, around the area where the dragon was. Although they weren’t very intelligent, he could at least have them move in something like a formation. This one was meant to make it harder to kill too many of them with an area attack. It was spread out, but it still counted as a formation. Quietus could send in undead one after the other, if he wished, but it wouldn’t serve as such a good distraction. Instead, he needed to do a bigger attack, even if he sacrificed more minions. He didn’t have to sacrifice any good minions though. Hopefully, they would keep the dragon’s attention well enough that it wouldn’t go investigate Ruby’s song.

There were about two hundred minions Quietus could easily afford to sacrifice. They certainly couldn’t be a real threat to the dragon, even if it refrained from flying, but that was not their point. Quietus just hoped they didn’t die too quickly.

Earlier, Quietus had scouted the location where the dragon had been before. It was still there, in the center of the fields. At least, it was near to its previous location. Seeing it close again, Quietus realized how big it was. It was a few hundred feet long, and bigger than all of his minions put together, even ignoring the fact that his skeletons didn’t have much actual volume. Its mouth was big enough to swallow a horse and rider whole, if it wanted to. Perhaps it had. Quietus decided not to think about that too much.

He took up his position near where his zombies would start their approach. He was in between Ruby and the Dragon, in case anything went wrong. If Ruby died, well, the two armies of ghosts wouldn’t be able to help, and the battle was pointless. Thus, she was the most important part of the plan, though Quietus wanted to live too. Though he didn’t care too much about experience, a dragon was much more experience than anything normal. Plus, he really should stay alive for the ending to his own quest… this time.

Quietus commanded the zombies and skeletons to move forward. When they were about a hundred feet away from the dragon, it rose up. The first thing it did was its soul-sucking ability, the same thing that had killed Quietus. Fortunately, it did seem to cover about the same area as he would think dragonbreath would. Now that he looked at it without dying, he could see the area become hazy and ghostly, as the souls were ripped out of about ten skeletons. As an experiment, Quietus had avoided powering up some of the minions with Transfer Soul. He thought some of those were in the group killed. As he suspected, the dragon could drain the necromantic energy controlling the undead, even if they didn’t have a real soul.

Shortly after this, Ruby began to play music and sing. At least at first glance, the dragon seemed distracted enough to ignore her.

Undead charged at the dragon. As a squad approached close enough to attack, it took a swing with a claw, wiping out five of them. Quietus wasn’t sure if he could have survived that, but his minions definitely couldn’t. Although the ghosts should be arriving quickly, it seemed to take a very long time.

Every few seconds, the dragon would swing his claws or swipe his tail, wiping out another group of undead, almost lazily. It didn’t seem to feel the need to put much effort into killing these minions. That suited Quietus just fine. A zombie wielding a cheap greataxe chopped at one of the dragon’s legs. It did precisely the amount of damage Quietus expected, none. Well, it was possible it chipped one of the scales slightly, but Quietus wasn’t close enough to more than guess at that.

After about a minute, the dragon caught some of the now more clumped up undead in its soul-stealing breath. This left slightly less than half the minions alive. Quietus thought he could just see the ghosts approaching in the distance, but he wasn’t sure. Either way, he didn’t think they would make it before the last of his minions were defeated.

Quietus moved to the side, to be less directly in the path between the dragon’s current position and Ruby. The ghosts would certainly be able to keep the dragon occupied once they arrived, but at this rate the dragon would finish with the minions and likely go investigate before then. Quietus had to act.

Quietus cast a Demon Spear, throwing it at the dragon’s neck. Fortunately, he had practiced, and the Demon Spear also wasn’t affected by gravity in any significant way. Thus, it was able to reach. It was also fortunate that the dragon had a very large neck. Quietus had been watching its movements, and he chose a moment when its head would likely be paused. All of these together paid off, and he succeeded at his attack- Which had also been his Perforate Artery ability. This would cause the dragon to bleed. It would, of course, also draw its attention.

Just before his sneak attack, Quietus had ordered his minions to climb onto the dragon- or grab onto it anyway. Because of that, he now had a dragon charging at him, with zombies and skeletons being dragged along behind it. Some of them were thrown off by the violent motions, but they couldn’t get tired, so those who had a good grip remained. It helped that Quietus had taught them to climb, which gave them at least a minimum of the ability to do this. They were all still beginner rank, of course, but something was better than nothing.

Although he had annoyed it, the dragon didn’t seem to be extremely injured. It certainly didn’t feel the need to fly. Instead, it made the earth tremble as it ran toward Quietus. He didn’t have much of a plan beyond his first attack, so all he managed to do was throw another dark spear before it got to him. This one deflected off of its hard scales, and then a claw was smashing down at Quietus, ready to crush him into the dirt.

Though Quietus was good at dodging, the claw and forelimb it was attached to were very big. It was more of an area attack than a single target kind of thing. The claw slammed down at a speed that Quietus was unable to dodge. At least, not with his regular movement. Quietus used his backslide ability, to instantly move backward about five step. This was just enough to bring him to safety.

Quietus looked at his health bar which had dropped by about five percent. This was from an attack that completely missed. He ended up between two claws, but it didn’t even graze him. However, the rocks it scattered off the ground still managed to hurt him. He was now fairly sure that he wouldn’t be able to survive a single hit. At least, not a real hit. Maybe a graze.

He didn’t have much time to think, so Quietus made a snap decision. He noticed some of the spears and swords that had been stuck into the dragon over time, and thought they would make decent handholds. He’d already had his minions try to climb it… so why not himself. He wouldn’t particularly be of use if it took to the skies, which he thought it likely would once it recognized a real threat.

As he climbed, Quietus transformed into a ghoul, and activated Dark Cloak. More strength would be a benefit here, and he might as well do as much damage as he could while climbing around. The dragon reacted violently, swinging its front claw to try to throw him off. However, Quietus had anticipated that, and had a firm grip. In addition, though the dragon had very powerful limbs, it wasn’t really built for quick, jerky movements that were best for throwing someone off. Thus, it snapped its giant mouth at Quietus, but he flattened against its arm. Its bite wasn’t precise enough to hit him there, since it also hadn’t wanted to bite its own arm.

Quietus quickly climbed up, onto its back. He was glad he got there before it realized it could scrape something along its limb, such as its neck, and get him off that way. On its back near the neck, it would have trouble reaching him, since it wasn’t flexible enough to claw or bite him there.. Quietus started clawing and biting at it, but then he felt the world tilt. The dragon had started a roll, but fortunately it was very wide, and its mass didn’t turn quickly. Quietus quickly climbed around.

Fortunately for him, it was very uncomfortable on its back, and thus continued, instead of attempting to claw or bite him when he was running along its front side. Then, there was a period of time where Quietus was never really sure which was was up, grabbing onto swords and spears, sometimes even jumping to them or off of them, as the whole world tumbled around him, and occasionally claws came very close to ripping off his… everything. He somehow managed to avoid positions where it could kill him by devouring his soul.

Then the dragon suddenly stabilized itself upright, and started running and flapping its wings. At first he thought it was going to try to throw him off in the air, but then he saw. He had delayed long enough, somehow, and the armies were near. It had noticed them. Though they made no sound, the dragon had other senses, and an army, even an army of ghosts, was hard to hide. Though, personally, Quietus would have had them charge from underground, they seemed more used to living tactics. He couldn’t blame them for that, much.

And so it was that Quietus found himself on the back of a dragon, in the air, with two armies charging at him. Well, toward him, but it was no less intimidating. He was thinking maybe he should think his actions through more. Then he thought that it wouldn’t be as fun. At least he wasn’t afraid of heights.

//End Chapter 82