N is for Necromancy, (Tyr's Army)

It is time for the A to Z Blog Challenge and we have come to N.

N is for Necromancer

A Necromancer calls upon dark magic with the purpose of divining the future. He can also create an army of Un-Dead followers with his power, but is he really in control?

Tyr’s Army

By Lisa McCourt Hollar

They sat in a circle around the pentagram, a candle on every point. Josiah lay in the middle, his body already rotting, even though he’d been dead for less than a week, killed by Tyr, Kara’s husband. Now Tyr was attempting the unspeakable, he wanted to raise Josiah up.

Kara took the bowl that was passed to her and lifted the meat inside to her lips. It was putrid, having been flayed from the body of the sacrifice hanging above Josiah’s head. The woman’s blood dripped on his body, splattering in the corpse’s mouth, which had been wedged open to receive the sustenance. Kara gagged on the flesh and would have spit it out, except that Tyr was watching her. If she didn’t do as he expected, she may end up hanging above the next body he chose to raise.

The others in the circle consumed the flesh without hesitation. Tyr had promised each of them wealth and power, once they conquered the world. He was insane and so were his council.

“Josiah is the first,” Tyr said, his voice filling the room. “He will lead my great army into battle.”

The Council all raised their cups, filled with blood and praised Tyr’s name. Kara raised her goblet and smiled at her husband, before swallowing the thick liquid. When all the glasses were empty, Tyr began his chant, summoning Josiah. Kara repeated the chant with the others, her eyes never leaving Josiah. Her heart pounded in her chest, fearing what would happen when the spell worked. It would work; she had no doubt about that. Her husband was insane, but it was the dark magic he’d discovered that had driven him mad. It was the same madness that had driven her into Josiah’s arms. Tyr hadn’t said that he knew of their affair, but his choice in choosing his son as the first of his army left no doubt in her mind that he was well aware of their deception.

The chant finished and Tyr pulled a small bag from the folds of his cloak. There was a powder inside, ground from the bones of a dead child. He uttered a prayer to his dark lord and sprinkled the powder onto Josiah’s forehead. Slowly Josiah’s eyes opened. They were no longer the beautiful green that Kara remembered of her step-son, but were now a very pale gray, almost white. He stood and Tyr hugged him, welcoming his son back from the Underworld.

“Josiah, did you find out…will we succeed?”

Tyr, having visited the depths of hell, was believed to be able to divine the future. Tyr was asking him if they would be successful with their conquests.

“We will…but there is one that will try and interfere.”

“Who?”

Josiah turned towards Kara. His eyes bore into her and she shook her head, trying to find something of the man she had loved. His eyes were empty, soulless and he was now nothing more than a husk, a shell for whatever evil had taken his form. Tyr also looked towards his wife, his eyes hard as steel. “Take her.”

***

Kara stood in the front lines. Her heart no longer beat. She stared at Josiah, the commander of Tyr’s Legion of Un-Dead. She knew she once loved him and reached deep inside, to find the connection she had once felt to him and this world. It wasn’t there. Instead something dark slithered inside her mind.

They were getting ready to go into battle. They would be successful, the future was clear to her. The town at the foot of the hill would be overrun and they would kill everyone. Some, they would feed on, but the others would become a part of the army.

The thing inside her wrapped itself around the base of her spine. She smiled, a small remembrance of hatred surging in her brain. Tyr thought he was in control, but it was the demons that came back with them, entering their empty bodies that had the true control. Tyr would serve his purpose, for the moment, but when the time came, he would join the ranks of the dead and serve the Dark Lord as well.