This was the scariest and the most exhilarating day for the Leshmann siblings. For the first time in her life, Rita and her little siblings could practice Dark magic without fear of the Church!
So Rita went to the nearest body, eager to show Aleric that she is worth learning more magic. With each step, numerous necklaces Rita took (as her deserved reward for being on the right side!) made "chink-chink" sounds.
Her lost siblings followed Rita like little ducklings, causing her to stop and turn to them.
"Well? Didn't you see what Master Fenn said? We must raise some undead puppets!"
"Rita, sister... But we are tired. And it's dark here... Only you have a lamp! Besides, I don't like how these green-eyed skeletons look at me," Fiona, Rita's sister, said. "Let's walk together. Alright?"
Rita's brothers, Karl and Dreske, nodded in agreement. At the sight of their haggard faces, Rita softened a little. Her siblings were barely fed in the town's jail—but she was lucky they weren't hanged.
Still, she couldn't deny herself and them such an opportunity.
"It's just a bit of work! We will stay within sight of each other and get more lanterns. Then we can take a break while we search for bodies. There are a lot of houses with lots of food nobody is going to be eating now…"
That put smiles on the Leshmann siblings' faces.
They walked over the market square. Because of the fighting, there were a lot of fresh bodies, so the siblings quickly found a pile fit for them all. Exactly four bodies to reanimate as undead puppets.
After that, they simply ran out of mana.
Because practicing Dark magic was so dangerous, they spent most of their years studying just to learn how to control Dark energy without harming themselves. Any practice had to be done in secret from the Church. As a result, their mana reserves were extremely undeveloped!
When Aleric said the siblings didn't have enough to raise a single undead servant, he was absolutely right.
But before they left the market square to maraud more, the Leshmann siblings saw Aleric cast his own magic.
By this point, he had raised so many undead that the process became almost automatic. A few servants pulled bodies on the square into a pile near him.
Aleric raised the Spine Staff, and the air filled with Dark energy, thick as a green cloud.
"Kuivat annet hertllistaat kuoksoteleet ja taevat..."
The energy flew into the bodies, binding the remnants of their souls. And just like that, the dead walked again.
For him, it was a routine process. But to Rita and her siblings, this looked like a miracle!
"This spell incantation… It was so long and so quickly spoken…"
"So much Dark energy… How didn't it destroy him? Is that because he looks so scary? We are like flies next to a bird!"
"Can we learn this magic too one day?.."
"Are you done gawking?" Aleric asked, turning toward his apprentices.
They gasped and stuttered—except Rita, who was always braver than her little siblings.
"No—"
"Yes—"
"Sorry—"
Aleric huffed and gestured for his fresh undead slaves to move toward the dark mages.
"Slaves, follow and obey these four people as you would obey me. And you, 'mages'—take your puppets and these servants and bring me more bodies. Pile them all here." He gestured around himself.
"Yes, Master Fenn!" Rita said first. She assuredly turned to her zombie. "Undead slave! Follow me!"
It had just enough intelligence to obey this command. But Aleric knew that an undead servant could command his slaves more effectively.
Undead slaves were too dumb to work without constant oversight. Unlike mental commands, spoken orders could be misinterpreted easily. Whenever Aleric gave a spoken order, it was always together with a mental command, and the same went for when his servants commanded undead slaves.
But the living apprentices couldn't do that. Aleric foresaw a lot of stumbling in their future.
'As long as they bring me at least something, the resources will be well-spent,' Aleric thought.
His other undead slaves were already given out to undead servants not busy with guarding prisoners. All were busy gathering bodies.
Raising them before they started rotting and losing effectiveness, or before it became impossible to raise promising candidates as undead servants, was Aleric's first priority.
At this moment, a group of zombies approached from the side of the temple, pulling a dozen people behind them. The sacrifices from Samuel.
As Aleric asked, all these people looked already half-dead: they were either wounded or very old. The zombies were pulling them because they couldn't walk far enough by themselves!
After Aleric's previous spell, there were still some corpses lying on the market square. The place was a gathering point for the last of the town's resistance, so there were a lot of bodies of militiamen, some of them still holding their spears even in death.
Before, Aleric had raised the unarmed bodies as slaves. Now, using the mana from his quickly-killed sacrifices, Aleric raised ten armed militiamen as his new undead servants.
The first one was immediately sent after more sacrifices.
The other nine stood in front of Aleric, looking at him with loyalty bordering on devotion.
"Servants... I am your new master, and this is your first order: go into the city and find as many horses as you can. You know best where to look for them. Bring them to me, alive."
"Yes, master!"
As the zombies marched into the streets, Spine Staff spoke.
"Are you planning to raise as many undead servants as you have prisoners, master?"
Aleric smiled.
"That sounds just perfect. And there will be a purpose for the horses, too. Eventually."
"Your diligence deserves only praise, master! Soon, you will have enough practice to not need a ritual circle at all for the Raise Undead Servant spell. Then, even more advanced magic will open to you!" Spine Staff paused. "Of course, after more lessons. There wasn't much time for them lately. Otherwise, I'd teach you the creation of ghosts."
Aleric chuckled.
"All in due time. Now, I'm going to raise the dead until my tongue gets tired. Speaking of…"
He looked around until he found an undead laborer nearby, hauling a corpse.
"You! Bring my travel cart here and organize a snack and a drink. With something for my apprentices, too!"
The long night was about to grow even longer.