Chapter 45: Turning tables
"No one has ever caught that funeral guy. No one below it in ranks anyway. If we leave the boy, then he’ll just rot there."
"And the girl!" the old woman growled. Her wings beat faster as she stared sharply down. "Do you want me to tear the village down? That’s one way to do it."
The faceless man shook his head. "You’ll kill the boy that way. He can’t survive if you attack. Let’s watch him do what he can, and then I will stop that funeral guy."
Below, Riven was thinking about what to do, and the first thing he knew not to do was chase the funeral undead. It would be useless since he knew he couldn’t catch him, so why waste the little energy he had?
Instead, he sat down in a lotus position and took a deep breath. He focused on the undead, both the funeral undead and those inside, and he felt the aura surrounding them.
He felt that if he concentrated enough, he would see the aura clinging to them and twisting inside them, binding them. But he didn’t focus on that. There was no way he was going to enter into a mental battle with a necromancer powerful enough to set up everything surrounding him.
Instead, he began to cultivate the aura into his body and Sigil. His Sigil was already full, so the cultivation was him tempering his Sigil like a hammer against hot iron.
Next, he brushed against the Death Ledger in his mind. He reached inside to touch where the undead summon, Spartacus, was, and then he willed him out. "Heed me, Spartacus!"
His shadow darkened and spread on the ground like spilled ink. And from inside the dark pool, a hand reached out, a hand filled with battle scars.
The hand steadied itself against the edge of the ground and then heaved its owner out. Spartacus stood before Riven, and if not for the connection between them, Riven would have jumped up and away.