by Rex Jameson
As he looked at the sad, anxious faces of the paupers around him, Clayton remembered the bloodthirst of his first days as a reborn man. Back then, he had lusted for carnage and retribution, but since the siege of Mallory Keep began, he hadn’t eaten a human being in months. He didn’t regret his actions during the period, though. He had been a different person then—a wraith bent on vengeance. Now, he was a free man, electing to take a different path that led to renewed purpose and maybe even righteousness. He didn’t seek to destroy; he sought to preserve.
“People of Dona,” Clayton said loudly, “Our greetings from Perketh!”
A garbled but warm welcome came back from all directions around the well. Thousands of people were gathered now.
“You probably don’t remember me,” he said. “The last time I came through here, I was part of an army: Ashton’s Army, they called it. I know that many of you were a part of that movement too. When I last saw Dona, I was a man bent on vengeance. A wraith, really. I had been murdered by a noble: the High Lord Mallory himself. He dragged me behind his carriage on his way down the King’s Road. I was a no one—just a blacksmith’s apprentice—and he must have been in a hurry. I guess I got in his way. It’s funny what we get used to. Even after dying and coming back, I felt like less than other men; not worthless but worth less than someone else, if you know what I mean.”
He ran his gauntleted hand down his cheek.
“My injuries were grotesque when I last came to Dona. My jaw is getting better, though. Perhaps some of you have noticed a similar miracle in your own bodies.”
He pointed to his side.
“The flesh along my ribcage is being made whole again. One day, very soon, I know I will be fully restored to my old self… And I have one person… a great friend to the people of Perketh… to thank for this gift—this rebirth.”
Many in the crowd nodded, but others watched him skeptically, expecting a ruse.
“What are you doing here?” a man in a torn shirt asked. “What do you want? You sound like you’re selling something.”
Clayton smiled and patted his helmet on his lap.
“I’m here to ask for your assistance,” Clayton said. “Many of you have probably heard the rumors. A demon lord has risen from the underworld and brought even more death to our world. The people of Perketh have been fighting them for weeks. Even without help from the King’s Guard, we have managed to repel the assaults of the ragged undead and Orcus. We are fighting to stay alive.”
“We haven’t seen any attacks,” the man noted skeptically.
“I can’t account for that,” Clayton said, “I don’t know why these undead do what they do. They follow a demon lord, and he controls them utterly. We’ve spoken to them briefly, when they first came to town and made their demands to submit or die. We didn’t submit, and we held them back until the shadows came.”
“The shadows?” the man said. “You mean the great beasts that passed us overhead some days ago?”
“The dragons?” a woman asked with a tremor in her voice.
Clayton nodded. “When the dragons went north, the undead broke. They ran north away from us. We have taken this reprieve as an opportunity to regroup, rebuild, and replenish our defenses. The undead will be back, and we’ll be ready for them.”
He saw a timidness spread throughout the crowd when he said undead. He understood their shame, but he wasn’t trying to use it for effect.
“You are not what they are,” Clayton said. “The minions of Orcus are the true undead. We, you and I, are the Reborn. We are Ashton’s Army. We do not answer to a Demon Lord.”
He raised the pennant into the air, showing the golden man and the ten hands on the green background.
“We are not mindless. We are not ghouls. We are free people—at least for as long as we choose to remain free by fighting for our lives and freedom.”
A murmur spread across the crowd. Neighbors gossiped with neighbors.
“The undead,” he said, “will return from the north, and the dragons will come back from the south. Each will bring great destruction to whatever they touch.”
“How do you know this?” the skeptical man asked again.
Clayton wondered if the man might be on the local council.
“I know the undead because I’ve been fighting them,” Clayton said, “and I fear the dragons because they’re unknown to me. Do they have minds of their own? Are they as fiendish and bloodthirsty as I imagine them to be? Will they come back here to avenge the creature they carried with them to the south? If that was my brother, I would!”
Many in the crowd nodded with him. Blood feuds were often more vicious in poorer areas like Dona. Every man treasures something, and if the only thing he has is family, then that’s where the battle lines are drawn.
“We’ve all heard the stories of the dragons of Visanth,” Clayton continued. “We’ve all heard about the prince who arrived on our shores and burned the city of Sevania. Where do you think he’s going to go next? If he wants to go to Fomsea, he’ll pass through Dona. If he wants to go to Mallory Keep, he’ll want to take the King’s Road through Dona. And do you think he’ll stop to ask you if you belong to the undead of Orcus or the reborn men and women of The Necromancer? Do you think this prince will care about the difference between us and them? And let’s just say that the prince bypasses you, the demon lord is vanquished, and the realm is returned to something close to the old normal. Do you think the King’s Guard will care which side you’re on when they ride through here from the northwest?”
Women in the crowd shook their heads harder than the men. There was no mercy in Surdel for magical things: whether events, creatures, or men. Before they had been reborn, many of these same people in Dona probably took part in a witch burning or a public stoning for supposed curses. He thought of his wife Riley for the briefest moment, but pressed on before he had to fight back fresh tears.
“We are beset by danger,” he said. “Our only hope is to band together.”
“Band together to do what?” a man asked.
“Look after each other,” Clayton said, “band together, fight the real evil out there. Punch them in the mouth. In Perketh, Master Nathan and I have been forging armor and weapons—so many weapons that we don’t have enough people to carry them. That’s where I hope you come in. We have fields for food. We have a blacksmith, a theater, and a hunger to survive and live and thrive.”
“You want us to come live in your town,” a woman said. “Why can’t we stay here?”
“Because the undead are coming back,” Clayton said, “and you don’t have a blacksmith… Because I see the look in your eyes, and I know you are just as worried about the dragons, and the princes, and the kings, and people who don’t understand you as I am. Because if you join me and the people of Perketh, you can make a difference. You can fight for a better life for you and your children.”
“You don’t know anything,” an old man said. “You’re just a boy. What could you know?”
Clayton chuckled earnestly.
“You’re probably righter than you think,” he said, smiling through his grotesque wound. “When I died the first time, I was a young man—only recently in my twenties—and I hardly count those years anymore. I’ve only been reborn for a year. So, I’m not just a boy; I’m practically a toddler!”
He laughed and the crowd laughed with him.
“But I’m not wrong,” Clayton said. “I don’t have all the answers. I know what I know, and I know what I believe. I’m just a blacksmith apprentice, but I’ve learned from one of the best. I know how to shape metal, and I know right from wrong. Being reborn didn’t change any of that. I’m not here to tell you who you are or what you should do. If you think that, you haven’t been listening.”
Clayton wheeled his horse around and prodded its flanks. It reared dramatically.
“I’m not trying to sell you something,” Clayton said. “I’m here to tell you what we’ve been through in Perketh and ask for
your help. But it’s your choice, really. You can stay here and wait on the mercy of a foreign prince from across the Small Sea, riding on a flame-breathing beast that has devoured whole cities already. You can wait here for the King’s Guard. You can hope that we manage to fight off another undead horde in Perketh and stop these mindless murderers from coming south to you. Or you can join us—people who understand what you’ve been through and what you’re still going through. You can help us make a better world and defend it as a Reborn. That’s your choice as free people.”
“You can call yourself whatever you like,” a man said, “but we know what we are. We’re the damned. We’re the doomed.”
Clayton rubbed his jawline. “Months ago, I couldn’t speak. My jaw was broken and unmended. I followed my friend around for a long time, thinking I was attached to him by purpose—that he raised me from the dead, and I owed him service. But I can speak now. And I can think—” he pointed to his temple. “I’ve always been able to think and choose. The undead I’ve fought are thoughtless and lifeless. Their eyes are fiery green orbs, and they do not think like I do. I am not one of them. Neither are you. So, don’t act like a mindless creature. Act like a creature with agency and choice. Because that’s what you are.”
He licked his lips and straightened his back. He lifted the flag into the air.
“I choose to follow the Necromancer Ashton Jeraldson of my own free will. I am a soldier in Ashton’s Army—not because I’ve been drafted like the King’s Guard but because I’ve volunteered! I will fight for you and all our people for as long as I continue to live and breathe in this world.” He pounded his chest. “The Abyss will have to wait a long time to claim this man!”
A cheer rose up from the crowd. Even some of the skeptics nodded. Men pounded their fists into open palms and pledged themselves to the service of Ashton.
“You do not have to sign a parchment,” Clayton yelled, “and you are free to leave this army at any time. But if you are free men and women who want to stay that way, I ask you to follow me to Perketh!”
Clayton wheeled his horse back to the west. He didn’t know how many would follow, but his instincts told him that now was the time to act. This was the moment that the reborn either followed or perished.
He put his gorget, bevor, and helmet back on and closed the visor. He dug his heels into Crassus, who reared and galloped ahead. The crowd parted and then followed. The men abandoned their carts of logs from the forests of Mallory. The ones who unhitched their oxen and horses were the closest as Clayton crested a hill that overlooked the town. Behind him, thousands trailed. As he watched, a shadow passed over the line of people. Then a second and third.
The fire beasts had returned. Clayton saluted the man on the black dragon, who must have assumed he was King’s Guard, leading normal citizens from a normal town. He thought he saw the Dragon Prince wave back, and then the man on the dragon was gone to the north. A white dragon followed close by and then two green dragons. To the south, pikemen appeared, marching in twenty perfect formations of thousands of men. The rider-less dragons circled back over the people, who clutched their belongings close to their chests as they ran from the town.
The green dragons swooped low above the citizens. The beasts shrieked and squawked, terrifying the women and children. Clayton rode back down the path, calming his people but also urging them onward.
“It’s OK,” he said. “Keep moving. Keep your heads down. Don’t look up. Don’t goad them. Make no threat or challenge. These dragons are feral. And the men from the south will not understand who we are. We cannot let them get close to us. Keep moving.”
He lifted children onto the back of his horse and carried them up the hill. He returned a dozen times, sometimes carrying four and five women and children awkwardly within his arms and across Cassius. He managed to get everyone in the long train clear of the town just as the Visanthi pikemen entered Dona.
“Who do you think you are?” he heard a man shouting in the distance. “This is our town! We live here! Who do you think you are?”
He saw a commotion within the soldiers and a deformation in the squadron of men in the outskirts of Dona. He saw the ends of the wooden butts of the pikes rise upward and then back down within the crowd. The soldiers were stabbing someone. A scream echoed up from the valley—a woman’s voice this time.
“Keep moving,” Clayton said through gritted teeth. “Do not go back to Dona. You’ll find no quarter there.”
He backed his horse up the hill that overlooked Dona, making sure he was the last reborn in the train. He held the pennant across his chest and bowed, more as an homage to the people who stayed than the foreign invaders. The dragons circled back several times. The two greens shrieked loudly and menacingly like small dogs barking in the presence of larger ones.
Clayton planted his flag at the crest as he watched the foreign army move north and then east. They looked to be avoiding the towns of Perketh and Corinth, making a straight line toward Xhonia and Mount Godun.
“May they stick to that path,” Clayton said earnestly.
He turned Cassius toward his hometown, his head not quite as high as it had been during his recruitment in Dona. Dozens or maybe hundreds had stayed. He thought of his wife Riley, another innocent lost in this period of chaos—killed by the same kind of people he now fought to protect. If he were a lesser man, he might blame his friend Ashton for her plight. But he had been there with Ashton when they both found out about the fate of his beautiful, raven-haired love.
They say bad things happen to good people, but that wasn’t how Clayton truly felt. Bad things happened, all the time, and the only thing good people could do in bad times was band together to fight for what was right. He looked back briefly to see that the horizon behind the hill was on fire. The dragons had bombarded the town with flames. Whoever had stayed was dead and gone. The only path left was forward, on to Perketh, and Nathan’s armory.
19
The Wrong Kind of Reinforcements
Prince Jandhar Rasalased soared above the plains and forests atop his black dragon Jahgo. He found the undead army just north of where the black bird had been burned into the ground, southwest of Axewane. Even from this high above the ground, the stench of the putrid, walking corpses assaulted Jandhar’s nostrils. He squeezed the dark scales on the back of Jahgo’s neck and pushed his dragon’s head forward. He heard Jasmine give a small huff before she started her own dive behind him. His green pets Zosa and Venzin screamed so loudly that the undead shrieked in horror before the shadows had even passed across the field.
There was a panic along the ground as bony, putrid feet scurried toward the woods. Jahgo’s flames consumed tens and then hundreds along the tree line as a man in tattered noble clothes emerged from the forest. Jandhar pulled up just in time.
Julian Mallory, the fiendish man who had ripped the wing off Nintil, leapt a hundred feet from the ground, slamming his hands and feet into the hard earth to propel himself forward. Jahgo ascended to dodge the man’s attack and then dove without prompting. The vampire arced harmlessly over him, just out of reach. Jasmine followed the Blood Lord’s trajectory all the way to the ground, engulfing him in flames. Jandhar heard her lips smacking as she readied another flaming mixture.
Far below, the greens skirted just above the heads of the fleeing undead.
“Up!” Jandhar commanded as he watched Julian bank hard toward the south, away from his dragons.
The prince followed the fiend’s unnaturally fast trajectory back to a formation of Visanthi pikemen who had just left the forest line north of Corinth. He pulled on Jahgo’s neck until the black dragon reversed his direction. Jandhar’s battalion kept marching north, into the path of Julian, but expertly formed a phalanx. The professional soldiers faced their pikes out in all directions and positioned their shields in an interlocked wall that was so tight that Jandhar could hardly tell where each shield ended. But the vampire ripped through the battalion as if they were lambs before a wo
lf, throwing men and shields aside in great gushes of blood. The assault was so violent that a man’s upper torso flew by Jandhar high above the battle, screaming and gurgling as the poor soldier passed by.
Jandhar watched the poor man sail past him and gulped hard as shock set in. Underneath him, his dragon Jahgo squawked in protest at his inaction. The vampire passed through the rear elements of the 500-strong unit he had assaulted, and the pikemen collapsed into a smaller formation. As Jandhar watched them recover, he howled in frustration at the savagery of the pale-skinned man with the dark hair who consumed limbs and innards as he ran, just out of reach of Jahgo.
The Blood Lord ran a clawed hand through the shields of an adjacent battalion, and Jandhar pushed hard on his dragon—willing him to speed up. As the prince passed over the first mauled battalion, he heard the rattling of armor and more screams. He looked down to see some of the mangled men standing up and attacking their comrades. His felled men had immediately joined the ranks of the vile and undead.
Jandhar turned around in his leather saddle to find that the goat-skulled Orcus had moved to the center of the open field, right on top of the unnaturally blackened bird pattern. The demon lord raised his staff high overhead. With every pump of his weapon, dozens of slaughtered men came back to life and mauled the very men who had quartered with them for months and even years.
Jasmine barreled down upon the massive, twenty-foot tall demon lord. She caked him in sticky, fiery liquid, but he didn’t flinch or yell in pain. He watched her like a cat might watch a swallow while Zosa and Venzin dove at him like magpies defending a nest.