Rise of the Supreme Necromancer-Chapter 85: The Crypt of the Bone Crown

A small camp was set in an abandoned farmer’s hut. The place’s previous owners escaped the advance of the undead horde in such haste that they left almost all their meagre possessions behind.

Three inquisitors were sleeping on bedrolls on the floor. Their heavy armor was lying near, and they were stripped only to the padded layers beneath.

The fourth, Irkan, was keeping watch on the hut’s porch. The sunrise shift was the toughest, but his discipline was tougher. The sky was slowly lightening, and he could watch the fields below. But he was also focused on the energies in the air and the sounds around. The rustling of grass and the field mice that ran through it.

No undead were walking nearby, but he could feel their army beyond the horizon.

Then, Irkan heard an approaching flapping of wings. He tensed, then he saw the bird and relaxed.

"Mistress Adjudicator!" Irkan exclaimed, rising from his seat. He raised a hand in a metal glove, and the raven gracefully landed on it.

The magical beast had a much better night vision than regular birds.

"Mistrrress," the raven croaked back, mimicking Irkan’s voice. "Letter. Garrrron. Judi good girrrl."

"Yes, you are," Irkan said, gently lowering the bird to the ground. "Just let me get a lantern..."

A minute later, with a light from an oil lantern, he took a letter from the raven’s claw. After reading it, Irkan smiled.

"Master Garron knows how to pick people. His spy is a wretched soul, but he passes messages on time, and his heretical knowledge of Dark magic let him get closer to Aleric Fenn than anyone else possibly could. My squad has the opportunity for action that we have been waiting for all this time."

Irkan crumbled the letter in his fist.

"Do you need repayment for your hard work, Mistress Adjudicator? A meal for the road? Or will you come back to Master Garron as soon as possible?"

Adjudicator tilted her head as if she understood every word. Irkan was sure that she understood at least every second one.

Instead of words, she flew into the hut’s window and went right to the inquisitors’ travel bags.

"What?—" gasped Maria, when she was woken up by the flapping of wings above her head.

"Wake up, everybody! We must prepare our horses and move out immediately! There’s a necromancer to strike down."

***

After the first couple of hours of his journey, Aleric could feel the crypt calling for him. He didn’t even need the Spine Staff’s directions anymore.

He knew that he was at the right place when he saw the first graves. The time had almost destroyed the simple stone and wooden markers, just like it destroyed whoever this graveyard belonged to.

Naturally, even if the Arch-Necromancer wanted to build a crypt in a place away from civilization, he had to find a place with a graveyard.

’Although maybe it WAS near civilization before the Dark Spires fell,’ Aleric thought.

He rode past the graveyard and soon saw the cave the Spine Staff mentioned.

He and his escort of six Black Riders slowed down as they walked toward the mouth of the cave. Finally, at its foot, Aleric dismounted with relief.

After several hours straight riding on horseback, his legs felt like jelly. His half-undead body was tougher than that of an ordinary person, but not as tough as that of a true undead.

With his undead right behind him, Aleric walked into the cave. It was wide and dry, and the crypt was only thirty feet ahead.

It looked just like the one Aleric had seen in the past: a small building made from dark gray stone, untouched by time and protected by a pair of knight statues near the entrance.

But one thing immediately struck Aleric as wrong. Terribly wrong.

The door was open a crack!

When Aleric approached the door and put a hand on its stone, he felt that the magic energies here were much weaker than on the crypt of the Spine Staff. It wasn’t at all like when he entered and left with the Staff’s permission.

"Someone found this place and broke through its protective magic!"

Aleric pushed the heavy stone door open and rushed down the stairs below. As he expected, there was nothing but an empty room inside. All that was left of the Bone Crown was its stone pedestal.

Aleric stared at it, clenching his fists until his fingers hurt from the tension.

There was only one force in Aleshat powerful enough to destroy the protective magic of Xarvain without breaking the entire crypt—the Church of Light. But definitely not the second rank clerics and elemental mages, and probably not the third rank ones...

At least a fourth rank spell was definitely necessary to crack the crypt open, and Aleric knew about only one mage in Aleshat who could cast fourth rank spells.

The dreaded inquisitor Garron the Evil-Eye.

Aleric hurried out of the crypt. The instincts honed in him by years of survival and fleeing humans were screaming at him.

"We return. Immediately!" he ordered his riders as soon as he was outside. "And be on alert for ANYTHING!"

"Yes, master!"

Despite Aleric’s alarm, nothing sprang on him as soon as the group left the cave. He kept looking left and right, trying to spot something as the horses galloped and while holding for his dear life, but nobody attacked Aleric in the graveyard.

It was a few minutes later that he sensed Light energy ahead.

"Stop!" he ordered. His horse skidded to a halt, neighing, and an arrow meant for Aleric hit its neck.

Light energy in it singed flesh around the wound, but Aleric immediately sent his own Dark energy to counteract it and protect the horse.

Realizing that they were noticed, three inquisitors sprang from their hiding spots in tall grass. They were running on foot and in heavy armor, but only a few dozen feet separated them from Aleric.

Farther away, Farlan notched another arrow on his bow.

Aleric raised his hand, gathering Dark energy.

"Blasted inquisitors—show them what you can, Black Riders!"