Chapter 113: Grimoire Magic
Velma stood at the rear of what remained of her battle lines and simply broke into tears. The strength that had held her upright through the morning finally gave way. Tears ran freely down her face. Her voice came out cracked and broken, the sound of a woman who had watched too much die in too short a time.
"The angel fell protecting us. Today is the worst day Fondel has ever known. This is a horrifying fate. Why did I ever bring my army here for a mere village? Even my son is gone, nowhere to be found."
Athena stood a few paces away, her face pale under the dirt. The golden light in her left eye still flickered weakly as she stared at the distant place where Gabriella had gone down under the Orc King. She had narrated everything in great detail.
The shock of watching an angel fall—truly fall—had settled deep in her chest like a cold stone. She had been raised to believe the host of heaven was untouchable. Seeing one broken and carried away like a prize of war had shaken something fundamental inside her.
Beatrix stepped closer to Velma and spoke in a low, urgent tone, trying to cut through the grief before it swallowed the Countess whole.
"Countess, we have to escape now while we still can. We cannot let Garkash get his hands on you. We promised Joan we would keep you safe. We promised your son the same."
Velma shook the younger woman's hand off her arm with surprising force. Her eyes were hard now, almost feverish, the tears still wet on her face but the will behind them suddenly iron.
"I will die with my army today. Nobody will get their hands on me. Not while I still draw breath. I will not be dragged away like a coward while my people are butchered."
Beatrix tried again, softer this time, the way one speaks to a person standing on the edge of a cliff.
"My Lady, please. Do not be outrageous. It is our duty to protect you. We cannot face someone like the Orc King and his shaman without you getting hurt. Think about Ethan!"
"Then do something about it!" Velma's voice cracked into a near snarl. She looked almost manic now; hope burned clean out of her as she watched Garkash's forces begin the systematic slaughter of the remaining elves and humans.
Bodies fell in ones and twos. Screams rose and were cut short. The air stank of blood, opened bowels, and the thick, animal fear of men and women who knew they were about to die.
The expression on Beatrix's face changed. Something cold and determined settled into the lines around her mouth and eyes. Athena saw it at once and felt a fresh spike of dread.
"Bea, I don't like that look on your face. Don't do anything stupid. Not here. Not now."
Beatrix stepped forward into the open space between them and the battle, boots sinking slightly in the churned mud. "Ethan did extreme things to protect us from the Orcs. Things that should have gotten him killed. I am merely going to do what he would do in this situation if he were standing here instead of me."
She slid one hand down the front of her trousers, past the waistband of her panties, and drew out a folded square of something that looked like thin, dark bark.
The surface was covered in symbols that seemed to shift and crawl when the light hit them. The air around the parchment felt colder than the rest of the morning. She held it up so both women could see it.
"Step back," she told Velma and Athena.
They did. Beatrix dropped her staff into the mud with a soft, final sound. She unfolded the bark parchment with careful fingers, raised it in both hands as if it were an offering, and began to speak in a language that scraped against the ears and made the teeth ache.
"Nunc, vos mortui, exurgite et oppugnate."
The words came out quiet at first, almost a whisper, the syllables sounding of old graves and closed rooms. She repeated them louder, putting more of her will behind them.
"Nunc, vos mortui, exurgite et oppugnate."
And louder still, until her voice cracked with the force of it and the veins stood out in her neck.
"NUNC, VOS MORTUI, EXURGITE ET OPPUGNATE!"
The air changed.
It was not a gradual shift. One moment the morning was warm and thick with the smell of blood and Orc sweat and the copper tang of opened bodies. The next moment the temperature dropped as if someone had opened a door into the heart of winter.
The sunlight itself seemed to thin and turn a sickly grey, as though a great cloud had passed over the sun even though the sky remained clear.
Fighters on both sides felt it in their bones. Axes paused mid-swing. Spears lowered. For a single, stretched second, the entire battlefield went quiet except for the wet sound of blood dripping into mud.
Then the groans began.
They rose from the mud and the heaps of bodies first as soft, wet sounds, the kind a man makes when he tries to speak through a ruined throat.
Then they grew louder, a chorus of agony that had no living breath behind it.
Corpses that had been still only moments before began to twitch. Fingers clawed at the dirt. Arms pushed against the weight of other bodies. Heads lifted on broken necks.
Humans, elves, and Orcs alike staggered upright on legs that should not have been able to hold them, eyes milky or missing entirely, mouths hanging open in silent or not-so-silent screams.
Beatrix's voice cut across the field, hoarse but clear, carrying the authority of someone who had just broken a law older than most kingdoms.
"Fondel army, retreat now! Do not come into the path of the undead!"
The remaining soldiers of Fondel stared in pure, uncomprehending shock. Some made religious signs with shaking hands. Others simply stood frozen. Then training and the raw will to live took over.
They pulled back in ragged groups, weaving between the rising dead, some of them nearly knocked down by the very comrades they had fought beside only minutes earlier.
A few of the undead turned toward the retreating living, but most of their attention was already fixed on the nearest warm blood—the Orcs who still stood in dense knots across the field.
Velma watched it all with wide, horrified eyes, one hand pressed to her mouth. "What spell is this?"