The Necromancer Trilogy - Black Magic

Chapter Twenty - When Darkness Fell

Celia leapt through the air as if she had wings, fire scorching a black line across the grass. She fell against the castle keep, her blazing hands burning a print onto the stone. She rose to her feet again, staring.

 The child-army was leaving the hill, fleeing down the slope in a ragtag of chaotic bodies and shrieking voices. There were cries of pain, bodies carried on shoulders or in arms. Some barked orders, others obeyed them.

 Yet there was something different about them, and that was that they now looked like children. Just like children, ordinary, frightened and angry, running. Not even running away. Just running.

“All to me!” the boy at the front yelled, his hair shining like a beacon. “Sixth, what do you think you are doing? Fall in!”

His voice was cracked, but it resounded around the hill. The children obeyed. For a brief second, Celia wondered if there was a dangerous future lying in wait for that boy, and whether one day she might be called upon to put him down.

 With them gone, suddenly the attackers on the hill looked less of a problem. There were few still fully functional. Though that few only levelled the playing field, it was the turn of tables that they needed. Now, they stood a chance.

 Celia launched herself into the air, bowling over a small man and placing her burning palms to the sides of his head. He screamed as his flesh cooked and his brain fried. Ten long seconds and he was dead.

CEASE.

The words weren’t spoken and certainly weren’t heard. They were an order that overrode everything normal brain cells were trying to say. Celia’s muscles seized up and she fell face-first onto the grass, unable to move, frozen into obedience of that command.

Lord Legion stepped out of the shadows and walked across the hill, past his frozen soldiers, until he stood with the rapt attention of all the incapacitated fighters at the highest point beside the cliff.

“You have fought well,” he announced.

He didn’t raise his voice but it echoed across the hills regardless.

“You have fought bravely. You have fought nobly. You have fought foolishly. But no matter. I can wait for the Doors to re-open. That is no problem. What matters here and now is that you die today. Attend me.”

Celia couldn’t find a way to disobey. She was a puppet and he was making her walk towards him however hard she fought. She couldn’t turn her head but her eyes revolved wildly, trying to take in how many of her friends and allies were in a good enough state to be walking just like her.

Eventually, she found herself standing in a semicircle by the cliff-edge, facing their enemy. Sophie stood beside her, brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to overcome Legion’s power. Celia forced herself to take a deep breath and not panic.

“Now,” Legion smiled the smile of a serial killer. “Will you behave?”

His hold over them was released and Celia sagged, exhaustion flooding through her as if Legion had taken all her energy and conviction, truly made her a puppet and now her strings were cut. She didn’t think to fight. She turned to search the people around her.

 It was with a sob of relief that she saw Merry, beaten and bruised and nursing a broken wrist, standing across from her. Her moment of comfort didn’t last long. A figure ran across the circle with a battle cry, hands raised to destroy Lord Legion.

 The Necromancer didn’t even turn to look. He just raised his hands and Larry Purple was thrown back into the wall of the keep. Over and over, he was smashed against it until his lifeless body crumpled to the ground.