Chapter 78: The Long Reach of the Curse
"They didn’t return."
"Oh... How long has it been already? Two days?"
"Yes, Master Fenn. You planned to leave this town tomorrow. Any longer, and these sad excuses for men will be late for meeting with you. Either they were caught, or decided to not return." Samuel’s voice made it clear what he thought was more probable. "No virtue in people like them. They only care for their own skin..."
Aleric let out a breath.
"I expected this. This is why I took their hair. Return to your other duties, Samuel—either these people will return by the end of the day, or we will consider them dead. You don’t have to do anything, either way."
"Yes, Master Fenn."
After Samuel left, Aleric looked at the bloody scene around. Just a day before, it was a warehouse. Now it was closer to a butchery—a workshop of a necromancer.
The ritual circle on the floor was covered in fresh blood of the victims that were murdered and brought back to un-life there. To the side, Krenn was standing near an identical circle, watching a pair of zombies bring another prisoner of war.
The Dark mage apprentice looked exhausted.
"Take a break, Krenn! You will be of no use to me if you let some stubborn soul defeat you. You can go and sleep if you want. I will deal with your prisoner later."
The Dark mage jolted at Aleric’s call, then bowed gratefully. Mid-motion, his legs failed him, and he almost fell to the ground.
"I... Thank you, master! I will just sit here..."
Aleric smiled a little.
Krenn really was really useful, if nothing else. Krenn was his only apprentice who could cast the Raise Undead Servant spell... Unless Rita and her siblings practiced very hard in Aleric’s absence. And he actually spent his time working without being prompted to.
Not to mention, his knowledge, which Aleric had time to fully absorb by now.
"In the meantime, you can watch me practice the magic you taught me to."
***
Aleric had moved to a cleaner part of the large room. A fresh heptagram was drawn on the floor with chalk, and a bowl of water was placed in the center of it. Krenn watched from the sidelines alongside a few zombies, including Aleric’s staff bearer.
Aleric knelt on the ground near the heptagram. Out of his pocket, he pulled a tiny sash, from which he produced a pair of hairs.
"I have no idea which is which... So let luck decide which of you is destined to live," Aleric muttered, placing one of the hairs in the bowl.
He put the other one away and raised his hand. In an instant, the staff bearer placed the Spine Staff in it.
"Are you sure, Master Fenn? The scoundrels had had the time to flee quite far by now. Your spell will probably not reach them by now... I don’t know how much energy it would take for it to do!" Krenn said.
"I won’t find out until I try. But I have a good feeling. Now, don’t distract me."
Dark energy flew from his fingers as Aleric chanted the spell. The incantation for the Curse of Death was quite long, but by now, he had a lot of practice in memorising the words of Dark magic. Spine Staff had even taught him the meanings of many of them.
"Nen kasvinen mies elja miellya sieltt silm, min rakasouintan eltuumetta ja olen koi, ai niin, nopeus on hukussa raaa, kultatsu, mutttonnialla, koa en pevkeenlaa reskl osukan elt..."
For Aleric, who could already cast some spells of the third rank, this second rank spell was simple, especially after his previous practice on animals and prisoners.
Dark magic flew through the heptagram, and the water in the bowl churned as if boiled. The hair strand burst into cold green flames, and Aleric felt his Dark energy being pulled far, far away.
The Curse of Death followed the hair to its former owner like an arrow with a rope tied to it. With each mile it spent more and more of Aleric’s mana, and with each mile it began to cost more and more to let the curse fly another mile.
Krenn, whose mana reserve was relatively small—only enough for a couple of Raise Undead Servant spells at a time—really could only place a curse on someone a few miles away.
But Aleric was much more powerful, and even assisted by the Spine Staff, which made Aleric’s spells cost only half the usual mana. Although when he said that his curse could reach the involuntary scouts on the other end of Aleshat, Aleric was lying...
This lie wasn’t entirely unfounded!
It took enough mana to raise half a dozen undead servants—most of Aleric’s mana reserve—until his curse reached its target and latched on to it.
"He’s there!" Aleric muttered, opening his eyes wide. He didn’t even notice when he closed them. "Still alive... For now. This is exactly why I sent two people instead of one..."
Aleric put the remainder of his mana into the curse, then ended the spell. The green flames went out, taking with them the strand of hair. But the damage was done already.
Three dozen miles away, a man who thought he could hide from Aleric suddenly felt very ill. So ill that he almost fell off his horse.
His companion stopped their horses before the man could break his neck. By that, he deprived the man of salvation from the much more painful death he would face in the next hour.
***
A day and a half a night later, a lone man walked into a town guarded by undead. Aleric watched his appearance with a pleased grin on his face.
After the sudden death of his companion, the other prisoner truly believed that Aleric’s threats weren’t a lie. Judging from the look of him, this man rode toward Aleric so quickly that his horse died from exhaustion in the process.
"Hello again. I see you have lost one of the few living horses I found in this town... Is the information you brought worth it?"