Chương 33: Raising the Dead

"I've learned the spell."

"What, just like that?" Paige replied.

"Yeh, I guess so." Aaron opened his tome, making sure to stand underneath the floating orb and light up the tome. He opened it and went to the Somatomany skills chapter and found a new entry for Animate Corpse. Paige was looking intently over his shoulder and read out loud, "Combining mastery over heart, flesh and bone, infuse a corpse with mana, restoring its body and giving it sentience. Larger, more complicated creatures require higher levels to animate and may be more difficult to control.

Requires mana to cast, but once animated, will function with or without the input of the caster."

"Sentience?" Aaron said.

"That could mean anything. It could be sentient and alive or a husk with the ability to move and enact basic instincts."

"Probably more like the second, from my experience with the undead," Paige replied.

"Will you be safe if I cast it?" Aaron asked.

"Yes, I'll be fine. It's only a deer. It's smaller than me, has no claws and no fangs. What's the worst that could happen? Besides, you're supposed to be able to control them."

"I don't know if I can control it. It took a lot for me to make those dogs listen. If anything, I made them attack us."

"It's different this time," Paige said confidently.

"It's your spell, and we're in a controlled, low-stress setting. You'll be more focused without a rabid corrupted dog chasing you." She had a point. The dogs were terrifying and it was hard to focus on new and difficult spells when your life was in danger. And if it came to it, they would be able to overpower the deer.

"Ok, you've convinced me," Aaron said.

"Do you know what combination casting is?" Paige frowned.

"It's a combination of two or more spells. What did you use to level up your masteries?"

"I think I understand. I need to use Manipulate and Osteokinesis to animate the heart, bone and flesh individually, followed by this new spell to finish it off. I didn't know spells could combine like that. I've never seen anything like it in spirit healing."

"It's much more common outside of the city. One of the ways we learn new skills is by combining and experimenting. The tomes let you progress quickly, but magic in the city is rigid and protocolised. For example, these balls of light are not strictly light spirits. A light spirit would be uncontained and difficult to focus. It's combined with a containment spirit, which is another artificial spirit master Giddeon developed. It's modelled around glass so it's strong and see-through."

"Amazing," Aaron said. He didn't want to compliment Giddeon, but couldn't help but be impressed.

"I've already cast Osteokinesis on the deer, so I'll use Manipulate now to infuse the heart and muscles with mana." Aaron reached inwards to his core and focused on the muscles of the deer, aligning strands of mana with the direction of the fibres to maximise their strength. He focused on the muscles which supported the most weight, such as around the hips and bracing the core and spine.

Infusing the muscles felt easy, probably because Manipulate was a higher level and he was familiar with the structure of muscles from casting on ham. The deer was more complex, but the same principles applied; muscles were made up of lots of strands running in the same direction. All he had to do was follow the directions and replicate the strands. The process was much faster than with the bones and came to him much more naturally. It was done in a matter of heartbeats.

He moved on to the heart, which he figured would be easy. He'd used his magic to power five hearts at a time in the Umber estate. The difference here was he had to leave some mana inside the heart to keep it pumping after he stopped the spell. Focusing on the muscles of the heart, he infused the muscular chambers with mana. But instead of pumping the heart, he focused on which muscles needed to move and in what order, and threaded mana into the important areas.

It was as if he could leave behind instructions for how mana should behave in a certain way once activated. The actual spell required Runecrafting. Aaron took a deep breath and braced himself. He already felt his mana draining. Although he'd thought about it carefully and saved some mana. He wasn't sure how much it would take to cast Animate Corpse, so he used his strength sparingly. Holding the tome, he traced the runes in the book in his mind's eye, carving them out into the air.

They were all familiar now, including some of the newer runes Tim had translated for him back in the city. The spell was quite long, involving more than twenty different complicated runes, but not too much to memorise with a bit of practise. He traced the final rune, but didn't feel his mana move at all. With Osteokineses, he could feel a distinctive chill in his chest throughout the process. But he didn't let it distract him. As he finished the final rune, his breath was suddenly sucked out of him.

Mana flowed freely from his mouth and into the deer, as if he was breathing life itself into her. But he knew better. It wasn't life, it was magic. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Blue light glowed through the bite marks around its body, as if it was lit from within. And the long grass around it swayed with its energy. Aaron gasped for air as he finished the spell. He was so exhausted, he could barely stand.

Paige grabbed him under his arm to steady him as they looked at the unmoving dead creature on the floor in front of them. The deer uncurled from its slumped position. Its head rose first, supported by its front legs. It turned to look at Aaron and Paige with its large black eyes. There was something off about it which Aaron couldn't quite put his finger on. Like something was missing from behind its eyes.

[Skill proficiency increase] Animate Corpse: Level 2 The deer pulled itself up onto all fours by tucking its back feet under and pressing upwards. Its movements were natural and fluid, unlike when Aaron was controlling it. Its eerie gaze never left Aaron or Paige.

"Are you doing this?" Paige said, as she subtly tucked behind Aaron's arm. Aaron braced himself and stood up tall. He had to really focus on regaining his balance again.

"I don't think so," he replied, "I finished the spell, but I'm not actively controlling it." Paige's fingernails pinched Aaron's skin as she gripped his wrist tightly. Her voice was quivering. Perhaps she thought it would be fine to practise on real undead creatures until she was actually face to face with a beast. The deer turned away from them and started to run.

"Aaron, stop her!" Paige shouted. Reacting instinctively, Aaron shouted, "STOP!" A portion of his dwindling mana escaped through his mouth, making him cough. It felt silly to use words that a deer wouldn't understand, but it worked. The deer stopped dead in the grass and turned to face him. It couldn't understand the language, so it must have been the intention, or perhaps Aaron's mana itself carried meaning.

Before he had a chance to admire his skill, a bolt of light shot out from behind him, hitting the deer in the flank. It shrieked in pain with an ear-drum piercing high pitched cry. It was nothing like how a deer should sound. It was shrill and agonised and made Aaron question whether they were far enough from the camp to be out of earshot. The ray of light Paige threw at the deer had burned a hole down to the bone. Black smoke sizzled out of the wound, illuminated by the magical light above them.

To his horror, the muscle crawled back over the wound. The two ends met in the middle, grabbing each other and melding together. The open ends of skin pulled together tightly over the top. It left nothing to show for the wound, except a small tag of burned flesh which hadn't quite sealed up properly. The deer screeched again, but this time he could tell it wasn't in pain or fear. The shrill sound pierced the cold air and made Aaron and Paige cover their ears in pain. It charged towards them.

It was only half Aaron's height and must have also been about half his weight, but it ran at a terrifying speed. It looked crazed. It may have been sentient, but there was nothing deer-like left. A deer would have run away, but Aaron was convinced it was coming for blood. The deer closed the gap rapidly, barely leaving any time for them to think. Paige pressed her hands together and fanned her fingers out, beaming a bright white light in the shape of a shield and placing it between herself and the deer.

Digging its front hooves into the floor, the deer aborted its charge, turning its face from the light. It reared up and flailed its legs frantically towards the shield. Paige broke one arm free from her spell and launched a punch towards the shoulder of the deer. Her fist was glowing white. The deer fell backwards with an explosion of light, but not before it reached down and bit into Paige's hand. The shield fell, and she screamed in pain, grabbing the wounded arm as blood trickled through her fingers.

The deer landed firmly on its front legs. There was a smoking hole in its chest where Paige had hit it with a light spirit-infused punch. It wasn't healing this time.

"STOP!" Aaron shouted at the deer, but it didn't listen. It ran towards Paige and headbutted her in the chest. Something cracked as it smashed into her, sending her flying onto the floor. She lay on the floor clutching her chest. The deer stood above her. It screeched and reared up, flailing its front legs in the air, then brought them down forcefully towards her face. Paige covered her head with her arms and rolled to the side.

Its feet smashed into the floor, knocking up a cloud of dust, narrowly missing her face.

"AARON!" She screamed. He was already there. Aaron lunged before the creature could strike again. He slammed into it, hooking his fingers onto its ribs through the gaping hole in its chest. The black sky spun around him as they fell to the floor in a chaotic heap. His lungs buckled under the creature's weight, the air leaving him in a ragged wheeze. The deer was a blur of writhing limbs as it frantically tried to escape his grip. His arms burned as his grip began to slip.

Just as it was about to break free, Paige stabbed down with a sabre, glowing with brilliant white light. It plunged through its back, deep into its heart. The deer's screech was cut short as it went limp. Aaron felt the mana drain away and fall into the ground. Aaron rolled the deer off to his side and scrambled to his feet. He didn't stop to check himself for injuries before running over to Paige.

"Show me your arm. Did it bite you?!"

"Yes, but it's fine," she said as she gritted her teeth and held her bleeding arm.

"This is different from dragonfire corruption, it shouldn't infect me. And you're only a weak Necromancer, so it won't do me any harm." Aaron took the criticism as a positive and sighed a breath of relief. He used his Manipulate skill to quickly repair the small bite wound in Paige's arm, not expecting to increase its rank as it wasn't much of a challenge. He reluctantly believed Paige about the wound becoming corrupted, although it bothered him how similar the deer was to corrupted creatures.

"You need to practise your control over these creatures before we do this again," she said. Aaron felt that more caution was warranted, but instead he found himself excited and curious.

"The scar is just to the east. We can't go north because of reports of greater corrupted creatures roaming the woods. It would be too dangerous." Giddeon bellowed as he pointed to a map of the Northern Expanse. There was an area of dragonfire scorched fields between them and the farm, which Giddeon referred to as 'the scar.'

"Let's go south then," Tim said.

"We're going to have to avoid the settlements for a while. I found this in the last town," Gideon said. He pulled out a poster, which was tucked into his seat on the coach.

"Wanted for murder: Aaron Barrows, Tim Barrows. Reward: Ten gold pieces."

"TEN GOLD! Paige shouted." Of course she was more taken aback by the reward money rather than the false murder accusations from the poster.

"We didn't kill anyone. And Tim had absolutely nothing to do with any of this!" Aaron felt his face warm and redden with anger.

"It doesn't matter, you pissed off the Umbers. Justice doesn't come into it anymore. Give it a few weeks, and it'll blow over." Gideon said dismissively. Aaron was too upset to argue. He knew that his home was probably ransacked and if he ever stepped foot in the city again, they would be waiting to capture him. He would probably be tortured and extorted until he gave Harrold what he wanted and then likely killed when his usefulness expired.

"So which way do we go then?" Tim asked.

"We are going through the scar!"