Aleric wanted to meet the next attackers face-to-face. But he knew that his five zombies would be nothing against the Church of Light's templars—his main enemies.
The Church of Light has been pursuing Dark mages and various undead all over the human kingdoms for centuries now. To those who believed that Light was the supreme of all the six elements of the world, everything related to Dark was foul.
The Church of Light also preached that eternal bliss could only be obtained through living virtuous lives, which sent your soul to the Light after death. Meanwhile, Dark mages always searched for ways to prolong their lives in their world or even pluck souls from the afterlife to animate corpses.
"I will need more undead to fight whoever will chase me," Aleric said, looking up at his staff. "Spine Staff, you promised to teach me how to make them."
He was tired from a day of running, but the recent revelations gave him a second wind—or was it the magic in his veins? Aleric felt like he could still go all night and learn a lot more than a single spell.
"It would be my pleasure, master." The skull's eyes flashed green again. "The next spell is called Lesser Raise Dead—it turns corpses into your undead puppets... Like Pain, it's only a first rank spell, so it will be easy to learn. Listen to the words of magic: tanssikaa kuoomat nukkelemattni."
"Tansika kuo… nat?" Aleric winced. "Damn, it didn't sound like that…"
"It's alright, master. The language of magic is a very complex one. You were almost correct with the first word! Let me repeat again: tanssikaa kuoomat nukkelemattni."
It took several tries until Aleric could repeat the spell without catching his tongue.
"Tanssikaa kuoomat nukkelemattni!" he said, and immediately felt the magic energy within him echoing to the words.
Following his intuition, he raised the Spine Staff at one of his zombies and let his mana flow through it and outward, adding to the mana already inside the zombie.
A bolt of green energy struck the corpse, making it jolt—but nothing else. At least, to the outside observer.
But Aleric felt how his spell settled inside the body. Unlike the Dark energy from the Pain spell, this spell was much more structured. Unless the zombie was badly damaged, Aleric knew he would be able to use it indefinitely.
Just to test it, Aleric willed the zombie to raise its hand.
The zombie raised its hand in a jerking movement. Like a puppet on strings.
"Excellent, master!" Spine Staff gushed. "You performed the spell perfectly on your first try, even without additional instructions! It's incredible, simply incredible. Now you can do the same to all your other zombies."
Aleric grinned at the flattery. No matter how thick it was, he hadn't been complimented by anyone for years.
However, he couldn't just relax yet.
"I need more mana," Aleric said, touching his chest. All the magic he used has already drained him, although he could also feel the Dark energy from the graveyard slowly filling it. "How can I regain it faster?"
"A simple way is to rest—your body will regain mana on its own. In places full of Dark energy, like this one, you can also gather it to recover faster. Or you can make a sacrifice of a living creature and gather the energy of its death—it's the fastest way."
Aleric glanced at his zombies.
"Just killing people wasn't enough?"
"Some Dark energy was released this way, but you weren't gathering it back then, master. Now it has spread around and gathering it will be much more complicated."
"I see. Good thing that there are still some living creatures around."
Aleric turned to the tethered horses, which were whining and snorting in fear of him all the time. The sound annoyed him.
Just like humans, animals hated and feared him for what he was. Well, he could fix that.
"Be close to the sacrifice and focus on gathering its energy when it dies, master. I recommend you to kill the sacrifice painfully and slowly—it releases more Dark energy."
Aleric nodded and pulled out a knife.
It sounded simple enough. Dark energy was gathering toward him on its own; it was intuitive to gather it faster. He imagined he could easily start meditating on his own, too.
Aleric approached one of the horses and quickly slashed its neck. It screamed and gurgled as the blood gushed forward, spraying on Aleric and the ground.
Other horses grew even more terrified. With a loud neigh, one of them tore its tether and ran off into the dark forest, then two more did the same. The only remaining one tried, but could only tear at their own skin.
The horse with a cut throat was bleeding out, and the Dark energy of its pain and fear was spreading around. Aleric stepped back, away from the horse's hooves and teeth, and focused on the energy. He felt it revitalizing him by the second.
The largest surge of Dark energy came at the moment of death. Aleric greedily gathered it all, feeling his mana reserve growing full. No, it was even the tiniest bit fuller than before—it grew with practice, like a muscle. Just like Aleric's skills in controlling undead puppets.
The horse fell to the ground with a loud thump. Smiling with joy, Aleric pointed a palm at it.
"Tanssikaa kuoomat nukkelemattni!"
The spell flew at the horse and filled its body—but not fully. There was too much space and too little magic… So Aleric added more. And more.
It took eight times more mana to reanimate this one horse than a human! But it worked.
Following his will, the zombie horse jerkily rose to its feet. Controlling it was harder than a human zombie, because Aleric didn't know how horses moved.
The last remaining living horse tore its tethers with a hysterical neigh and ran off, but Aleric didn't care.
Using the remainder of his mana, he cast Lesser Raise Dead on all his zombies. At first, Aleric wanted to also raise some dead from the old graveyard—but then realized that he would have to dig for them.
"The dead here are too old and rotten to make undead from, master," the Spine Staff consoled. "And before you make more undead, you must learn better spells for it. Which I will teach you soon, I swear. In the meantime, you can search for more bodies."
"Then this is what I will do, Staff."
After this, Aleric ordered his horse to lie down so he could mount it. Luckily for him, it was already saddled, at least. Still, at first, Aleric felt very unsteady on its back.
But then he looked at his small army of five zombies—each holding an axe now—and grinned.
"My own little army…" Aleric raised Spine Staff and declared, "This is just the first step on the road to my own throne! Zombies, we march. To Broomwood! To more undead soldiers!"