THE PRICE OF DEATH
The wind howled through the hills, carrying ashes and the stench of rotting flesh. Where once there were hunting grounds and sacred forests, now there was only land poisoned by dark magic. Where once there was life, now only death remained.
The necromancer Vorkar the Shadowy contemplated his work from a hilltop. His eyes, which once glowed with the warmth of a father, were now bottomless pools of shadow. He had done it for her. It had all started with his daughter. But a father’s love can be as cruel as a god’s wrath.
When Sitha fell ill, Vorkar looked everywhere for answers. The shamans of his tribe beat drums, sacrificed lambs, invoked the spirits of wind and earth. Nothing worked.
Vorkar scoured the mountains and the marshes, confronted demons and beasts, but the answer came to him in the simplest and most terrible way.
A whisper in the night.
-Death is only a threshold, wizard.
Vorkar, in despair, listened.
The answers were in his bones.
The elders warned him not to cross that path, but love for his daughter blinded him and he did not hesitate to cross the threshold.
He stole a human skin book from a forgotten temple. He drank the blood of the dead. He descended into caverns where shadows had claws and learned the whispers of spirits that should never speak to the living.
He learned to break the barrier between life and death, and when Sitha’s body finally succumbed to disease, Vorkar did not weep. For he knew how to bring her back.
The ritual was terrible. The stars went out in the sky. The wolves fled the village.
When Vorkar summoned the forces of death, his own people tried to stop him. But it was too late, for Sitha returned… but she was not his daughter.
Her skin was cold. Her voice was an empty whisper. Her eyes, once sparkling and full of life, were soulless cesspools.
-Father… why are you bringing me back?
But Vorkar could not lose her again… and so his fall began.
At first, Vorkar only wanted to perfect his art. He wanted to understand why his daughter wasn’t the same.
To learn more, he needed more corpses. He asked the tribe for them, but they refused. So he took them by force.
The elders declared him cursed. His brothers raised arms against him, but he had an army that could not die, and the same warriors fallen in battle rose up in his service.
One by one, he killed them. One by one, he turned them into servants. His people became a kingdom of the living dead. The souls of the dead could no longer find rest.
But Sitha remained an empty shell. And he still did not have the answer.
Years passed. Vorkar ceased to be a man and became a dark legend. Scavengers murmured his name in fearful whispers. Neighboring tribes shuddered at the sight of his banner, made of human skin and blackened skulls.
However, nothing was enough for him anymore. Each battle he unleashed brought him more bodies. Each victory increased his army. But Sitha still did not come back to life.
Then he understood the truth. It was not that his sorcery was flawed. It was that his daughter had never returned. What she had brought back was something else. And she laughed in the dark when he slept.
One night, within the walls of his fortress of corpses, Vorkar heard Sitha’s insidious laughter, and the sound chilled his blood.
-Father,” the voice whispered from the shadows, ”How many more will you kill to regain what you lost?
Vorkar turned. The shadow of his daughter stood there, her eyes blacker than death itself.
-You are not my daughter.
The creature smiled with sharp teeth.
-No.
Vorkar shuddered. All he had done… all his power… all his empire of the dead… had been in vain.
The truth was cruel and simple. Sitha was long dead. And what remained was a monster he himself had created.
The next day, Vorkar sat on his throne of bones and contemplated his handiwork. Hundreds of corpses marched under his banner. Entire villages trembled before his undying horde.
He was a more powerful sorcerer than he had ever dreamed. But his daughter was still dead and he would never get her back.
And that very night, a woman killed him. A simple barbarian named Thyra, though he never knew her name. She had no titles, no followers, no armies but a knife and a purpose.
She slipped between the walls of her bone fortress, moving among the dead without fear. She reached his hall, where he stood alone, the human fat chandeliers burning around him.
Vorkar saw her too late. She did not give him time to conjure a spell and her knife plunged into the necromancer’s chest.
He felt the cold of steel piercing his heart and staggered, lips parted, trying to mutter one last word of power. But nothing came out. The magic left him.
Thyra pushed him to the ground and pulled out her knife with a jerk. She didn’t look twice at him. She didn’t say anything to him. She just walked away.
And Vorkar died.
When his soul left his body, he felt no pain, only an unbearable weight, as if eternity itself was crushing him.
He opened his eyes… and expected to see Sitha. He expected to see her standing, smiling, with open arms. He hoped she would forgive him. But Sitha was not there. Only darkness.
And the shadows began to move. Twisted silhouettes, faceless demons, spirits with claws and sharp teeth.
-Vorkar…” the voices whispered, mocking, cruel. You belong to us.
He tried to run, to fight, to summon his power… but his magic was as dead as he was. All he had left was fear. And the shadows fell upon him.
Vorkar screamed, but no one heard him.
Thyra walked out of the fortress without being stopped or looking back.
At dawn, Vorkar the Shadowy had disappeared from the world. His throne lay empty. His army of the dead crumbled. His name turned to ashes. And the lands he once poisoned were forgotten by time.
Because death makes no distinctions. Because not even the powerful escape it. Because in the end, all fall and no one remembers them.