Xythen was still sitting on his throne–a large tattered chair that seemed to be the most comfortable left in this Circe-forsaken town–recovering from a day’s labors when he heard the sudden screech. The spindly necromancer leapt to his feet, and a moment later, the glow of flames was obvious, if distant, through the parlor window.

  Fire, the necromancer thought to himself. Why do they always use fire?

  Didn’t they know fire was bad for his experiments? Hateful idiots.

  Well. These foolish wardens had no idea that Xythen was the one with fire on his side now! Had he been more aggressive, had he brought his most impressive creation with him when he went to take care of the wardens in the first place, there was no way they would’ve survived. He could’ve simply scorched the fields around them and left them to burn to cinders.

  So why hadn’t he done that? It would’ve been the obvious choice, but Xythen knew he hadn’t been mistaken. He didn’t make mistakes. He was Xythen!

  Of course! Had he burnt the interlopers to a crisp, they would’ve been of no use to him! He had to recover their bodies, to make something useful of them as well!

  It was just as well, in any case. The tactical retreat had given him the opportunity to send a messenger spirit to Hellesa, to let her know what was happening. The corpse hag was no doubt already en route to rescue her most skilled proxy–and he’d have the heads of the four wardens ready to present to her.

  No. The bodies of the four wardens. The reanimated bodies. Yes, that was it. Why was it getting so hard to remember himself lately?

  A simple thought was all it took to send his lesser wights, his masterful creations of wood and water, racing to deal with the fire. He’d come once it had been put out, and then he’d put an end to the wardens, yes.

  No need to rush. No need at all.

  Instead, Xythen took the time to prepare his coal wight. The greatest and most powerful of his creations, the coal-marked corpse of the elder warden had been carefully heated until fire lived in its very flesh. It’s blackened skin, glazed and fired to a rigid shell, covered muscle that eternally burned like coals. Below the waist, Xythen had allowed the fire to burn wildly after he had spilled a bucket of coals–on purpose of course, accidents were beyond Xythen–and so the wight’s body trailed off into a tail of fuming black smoke.

  It had taken all of the necromancer’s sorcerous skill to bind a spirit into the flesh of the wight, giving it the ability to move through the air without legs, but now it was far better than it would’ve been without the acci–idea. The sudden inspirational idea that had led to Xythen burning the warden’s legs to ash.

  Of course, had he not spent three entire days puzzling out that brilliant theorem, he would’ve had so many more zombies and shamblers on hand but… They didn’t matter. Yes, that was it. No number of minor undead could compare to the glory of his coal wight.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered his masterpiece. It had been several minutes since he sent his wights to deal with the fire, it was time for him to intervene directly.

  The necromancer paused to throw on his heavy black cloak and grab his scepter–a mummified hand clutching a calcified heart–before he made for the door, his coal wight hovering over his shoulder protectively.

  Xythen was disappointed when he made it outside. A distant glare in the night showed him the earlier fire was still burning. The four young wardens hadn’t seemed like much, but they had managed to kill over a dozen of his minor undead. Perhaps they had managed to give his wights a fight, after all.

  It didn’t matter, of course. Once Xythen and his masterpiece arrived, the fight would be over in–

  A circle of flame washed out around Xythen abruptly, a ring of smoldering fire that responded to a sudden burst of violence before the necromancer knew what was going on. His wight, at least, had followed its instructions to defend him, the wave of fire forcing back one assailant and scorching the arrows of another to uselessness.

  Xythen looked to each side, a sneer on his face. He recognized the young wardens from earlier–the ghastly purple wraith and the ragged blue-haired girl.

  “Did you really think that to be enough?” Xythen snarled at the two. His wight didn’t need any more prompting than that for it to send a pair of fuming comets hurtling at the two girls, too fast for any mere warden to react.

  The two dodged anyways. The archer dove to one side, tumbling as she hit the ground, and still ended up coughing when she inhaled a lungful of smoke. Idiot. There was no sign of the other, so Xythen assumed his wight had simply incinerated her corpse entirely. A waste, but Xythen couldn’t fault–

  “Got you!” Suddenly, the wraith was in front of him, blades slashing dangerously towards his face.

  “Mage’s breath!” Xythen cursed, attempting to flail his scepter enough to block one strike, but the other still got through his guard, stabbing towards his gut. It was pointless anyways, his cloak had more than enough potency too–“AGH!”

  The necromancer fell back away from the dagger-wielding warden, eyes wide, even as his wight forced her away with another ring of flames. There was no doubting the blood spreading from his stomach, but how? She had struck through his cloak? How was that possible?

  Xythen glared at the assailant, anger consuming any hint of fear the attack had provoked. Only then did he realize his mistake–what he had taken for a dagger in the girl’s right hand was longer, weightier, more crudely shaped.

  Impossible! “Where did you get witchglass?” Xythen snarled at her. This changed everything. Were these four even wardens? Or had one of Hellesa’s sisters tried to move on the corpse hag by removing her most valuable, most suave, and most intelligent proxy?

  The wraith looked at her sword, and gave him a guilty smile. “Witchglass? Is that what this is called?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The obvious lie only made Xythen angrier. He felt a vein in his neck throb. “Destroy her!” he shrieked at his coal wight.

  The undead responded instantly to his command, and more comets of fire began to rain down on the interloping wight. Xythen added a couple of his own spells to the barrage, bolts of white-tinged blackness shooting from his scepter.

  Wither - Active, Attack - Fire a bolt of death-aspected magic, able to cause rapid necrosis to living flesh. Lesser focus and resilience cost. (Resilience cost reduced to minor by necromantic focus.)

  Still, the infuriating purple wraith dodged each and every attack before it could hit her. Most she would run or roll or jump away from, but some she would simply teleport to dodge, vanishing a split second before an attack could hit her only to appear ten feet away, another smirk marring her face. Spittle flew from Xythen’s mouth as he and his coal wight threw everything they could at the girl, a stream of attacks so dangerous she didn’t even try to close the distance.

  Which was why he didn’t notice the second girl, the blue-haired archer, sneak up behind him and suddenly squeeze her water skin, emptying its content onto the coal wight.

  Xythen spun to sneer at her. Water may have been a normal fire-aspected undead’s weakness, but such a futile attack was a complete waste of time on the magically-infused wight. Or at least, it should’ve been. Despite that obvious truth, the wight threw back its arms and actually retreated upwards into the air, a wail of ghastly pain emerging from the mouth of the undead as it tried in vain to escape. Bright white spots appeared along its skin, eating away at its carefully glazed hide and dousing the eternal coals within.

  Impossible, Xythen thought. He knew that effect–the water must have been laced with life magic. First teleporting and now this!?

  “Do you filthy trespassers even know what you’re doing? First fire, now life magic?”

  “How else do you expect us to defeat your undead?” the blue-haired one replied with another one of those insidious smirks.

  “Why can’t you leave me to my studies!?” Xythen waved his scepter, the focus reducing the resilience cost of another bolt of Wither. He was gratified to see the girl duck to the ground before the enervating magic could reach her, and took aim to deliver another before she could get up–only for a flicker at the corner of his vision to be the only warning he got of the wraith lunging in again.

  “Who sent you!?” he screamed as he whirled on the dagger-wielder, another Wither forcing her to dodge before she could reach him. A teleport this time, the coward. He pointed his scepter back to the archer, who had made it to her feet and was nocking an arrow, eyes on his screaming masterpiece, then he felt a sharp pain in his back. That damn teleporting bitch!

  “Stop screaming and KILL THEM!” he shrieked up at his wight, forcing his instruction through the haze of alien pain the life magic had forced on the undead. More fire began to rain down from above, but it was just as futile as before. All the wight succeeded at doing was lighting more of the ruined village on fire as the two invaders kept dodging, the blue-haired one teleporting now, too. Another arrow flew up at his beauty, and Xythen knew before it hit that somehow, that attack too was backed by life magic, tearing a ragged hole in his lovely creation.

  Xythen shrieked in maddened rage, preparing to rip out another chunk of his own life for Wither–and then he noticed his arm shaking as he pointed his scepter. Impossible, he thought, not realizing just how many things he had declared impossible in the course of the fight.

  He had used Wither plenty, in Emeston and in Culles, and he knew how it felt to overdraw from his resilience. With his scepter to reduce the cost and his resilience boon to keep him healthy, he should’ve had plenty more shots in him–but instead, he felt weak. Empty. Dying.

  Poison, he realized too late. The purple-haired one, it must’ve been. That witchglass blade of hers must’ve been poisoned. By itself, the effect wouldn’t be too crippling, but combined with the cost of his barrage of Withers…

  Xythen fell to a knee before he realized what was happening. No, there had to be more from him. He wouldn’t die like this. He just needed to… He could still…

  Xythen blinked. What could he do? He couldn’t let this be the end, not at the hands of these two pathetic imitators of power. He had to wipe those smirks off their faces! He just needed to…

  The necromancer looked up to the flailing, airborn form of his wight, now fully beyond his control, maddened by a pain able to affect even the near-mindless being. And he noticed, just above it, hidden from view, was another shape. A tiny skull, missing its jaw, held aloft by fluttering wings of shadow.

  An observer. Sent by… Hellesa?

  “I wondered when you’d notice."

  Xythen looked around wildly, searching for the hag, but saw now sign of her. The hag’s awful, rasping voice was inside of his head. “How?”

  “You’re the one who sent me your messenger, fool.”

  That was right! He had done that! “Are you almost here then, mistress?” This was no time to be skimpy with the titles.

  The hag cackled, the sound grating in his darkening mind. “Of course not, you fool! Though I appreciate the warning–the chance to observe these four is useful indeed.”

  “You knew they were coming?”

  “Always. He wouldn’t let us take the heartlands without a fight. I just needed to know what shape his response would take.”

  Xythen blinked in sluggish, weary confusion. Around him, the fight continued, the intruders leaving his slumped body alone as they attempted to shoot down his crazed coal wight. “Then… then why did you leave me?”

  “Because this was the best way to test the extent of their abilities–and to finally rid myself of you, as well.”

  Rid… herself? “But… I thought that…”

  “What? That you were special?” More of the wicked cackling clawed its way through his mind. “No, Seldik, you were never special. You were merely the one I trusted the least to leave behind me.”

  What? Then… Then she wasn’t coming? He was… He gulped, his wounded stomach sinking as he realized the inevitable truth.

  “You’re going to die, yes.” The hag cackled her malicious glee, exposing the truth to Xyt–to Gus Seldik.

  He had never been special. He was no genius. He was simply the one fool self-deluded enough to think he was, to think he’d be able to take control from the corpse hag one day.

  “But take heart, little Gussie! Now I know who killed you, and how. And now, if they come for me, I know that I’ll be able to kill them all. I’ll show him what he gets for meddling!”

  Gus’s mouth moved and he didn’t even realize that a word whimpered from his lips. It was getting harder and harder to move, to think. That cackling echoed through his head, a constant psychic torture that was the last thing the necromancer heard before a thrown hatchet slammed into his forehead and killed him.