The General's Legacy

Chapter Twelve: Breaking Camp (part 1)

The Occupation of Norvale 1851
Kingdom Army of Valendo led by King-Consort General Garon Allus Artifex-Dendra. Deaths: 0, Norvale abandoned before the attack.
Kingdom Army of Nearhon led by General Magnar. Deaths: 0, Norvale occupied
Excerpt from the war histories of Valendo

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Pragius had spent the afternoon hidden by magic, watching hundreds of men and their little white soul flames inside them building the military encampment. He contemplated the folly of feeding upon them. With so many, the risk of sheer numbers making it beyond even his power to beat them seemed possible, and the already dead were no use to feed on. The book pulled on the magic at the edge of his mind as he wandered to the far side of the lake. Removing the book from its leather bag he opened it. Perhaps a dark magic would be revealed that might bring down an entire army, or maybe a cursed charm that would turn comrades against each other. But then he thought, as master of the dead he already had a way to do that. Coalescing symbols spelled out where he should go, where he should look, and that something had been prepared for him.
He walked for a time he didn't measure, but the sun was low in the sky by the time he stood in the wet mist at the foot of the waterfall near Dendra Castle. Now he knew where he was and found the steep stairs that led up the cliff over which the waterfall roared. His bony feet slipped and scrambled on the smooth stones of the damp stairs. Half way up he almost pitched forwards onto his face, his left foot refusing to support his weight. He leaned on the cliff face and lifted his left leg bending it across his knee to find a small stone had caught between the bones of his foot, causing his big toe to stick up at an angle. He dug it out with a forefinger, stood and looked up the stairs seeing many more small stones in his path. No shoes, no known magic to create shoes from nothing. He spoke a few sounds directing his right hand towards the ground. The small stones were sucked by an unseen force from the steps and fell into the plunge pool below. Pragius continued winding his way up the stairs by the twisting white rush of water until he was faced with a barrier that stopped every visitor. A horizontal blast of whitewater leapt out of one tunnel into another. He opened the book again, the instructions were, for once, quite clear.
He stepped forwards slowly. The boundary of his ever-present shield touched on the water flow that had the power to eat through solid rock given time. The water jet twitched violently deflecting around the spherical shield. Pragius stepped forward with purpose, the water exploding in all directions sending spray high into the air and out over the cliff. For a moment, he was enclosed in roaring white water, violently determined to pound its way through his shield. Then he broke through the blast, found a step up and the water closed behind,sealing him in a dark, damp tunnel. The water's sound rushed up the tunnel in an everlasting hollow echo. Pragius looked into the darkness towards two flickering white lights hanging like giant pulsing stars in the night sky. He uttered a few sounds and his vision changed. The scene around him came alive, edged in a fierce violet light revealing all the detail but none of its true colour. The long tunnel, carved by water in ages past,extended away in front of him and then swept upwards. There were bones piled high lining one side of the tunnel. As he walked closer, he recognised complete skeletons. They lay one upon another as if someone had stacked them as cargo in a ship's hold. Pragius swept his battle sense over them and quickly counted two hundred. He looked up at two others which eluded his magical senses, but he could see with his eyes. The pair were standing guard in the tunnel, and it was from there that the flickering lights appeared caged behind their ribs. The flickering came from a writhing, balled up blanket of white light bound by ropes of black smoke – an enslaved soul. The two soul-bound skeletal warriors appeared as twins, each carrying a dark shield and a serrated edged long sword. There were other weapons in the tunnel. Two hundred poniard swords lined up against one wall like over sized sewing needles.
Pragius contemplated the potential of this small force, imagining it swiftly and silently falling upon the army encampment, spreading death and with him creating new followers out of the fallen.
'Is this really the plan?' he thought.
Pragius looked down at the book as it pulled at the magic in his mind and the decision was made. Something else caugh this attention. The smooth floor had the odd ripple and bump scratched out in violet by his vision, but beneath his feet, he saw other markings that water could not have crafted. He was standing in a segment of a circle split into four equal parts carved into the stone floor. Where the lines crossed a small stone set within another sat snug in a socket cut into the floor. Pragius bent down and toyed with the stones with the bony index finger of his right hand. A pulling on his mind from the book made him stand again. He inspected the skeletons stacked in the tunnel before beginning a wordless incantation of rumbling sounds.
He thought the command, 'Rise.'
A bone man from the top of the pile jerked into action like a marionette, untangling its arms, propping itself up and scrabbling free of the stack. Pragius watched it slide down and right itself on the tunnel floor. It stood straight and walked with the halting stiffness of a drunkard sobering up on the morning after. It strutted down the tunnel, stooping to collect a poniard sword without breaking its pace. Pragius thought commands and the others followed the example of the first, mimicking almost perfectly its every move. The tunnel filled fast with a crowd of grinning bone figures of varying height and stature.
'Follow me,' Pragius thought.
He moved to the tunnel opening blocked by the rush of water. Pausing a moment, he pondered what he should do to release his new followers from the cave. There must be a reason his battle sense missed the two armed figures with the light in their rib cage. He commanded them to approach and they came with serrated swords and shields held at ease by their sides. Pragius tilted his head in curiosity, bringing one of them forward, directing it to slowly approach the water. The blast twitched and bowed around an invisible sphere centred on the figure. It stepped through, droplets spraying into the tunnel as it went.
Pragius followed and stood outside the tunnel. A short while later he had the pair positioned so their magical shields deflected the blast of water over the entrance to the hidden tunnel. A steady procession of skeletal warriors started to file out of the tunnel, holding swords in their fists, tips pointing up to the night sky. There were no clouds, but a deluge of water droplets fell and battered the stone ground about their feet.    

[Chapter continues with a long part...]