“Ingerson is a loose end. I need a useful partner to get rid of him,” continued the voice.
“Yes sir.” Flinn had given the loose ends speech himself to more young assassins and would-be mercenaries than he could count. Other jobs put you on notice or gave you a performance improvement plan, but professional killers got the loose ends speech. Either way, you knew you were on the path to an early termination.
“I do hope you’re a useful partner, Garold.”
“I am, sir.”
“Good,” said Johan the Mighty. “You are dismissed.”
Chapter 7
“Well, I suppose that could have gone worse,” grumbled Gorm, dusting the soot from his rucksack. Black dust covered the pack, and the Kobold sitting atop it had been singed, but Laruna’s fireballs had otherwise left his gear unharmed.
“Maybe. But not by much.” Burt produced a cigarette from his vest and lit it on a smoldering shrub. “Do you think he’ll catch her before she makes it back to camp?”
There was a distant scream and the roar of a fiery blast.
“Aye,” said Gorm.
They heard Thane approaching from the woods before Gorm had finished cleaning off his pack. The Troll normally moved in total silence, given his species’ natural talent for lurking, but an angry mage makes a lot of noise. As they got closer, Gorm could make out Thane’s attempts to negotiate amidst the screams, punctuated by periodic blasts of fire.
“This is all a misunder—” Fwoosh!
“What I mean to say is that once we—” Woosh!
“Nnnngh… the thing is that the fire is really quite painful, so if—” Frooosh!
By the time Thane climbed down the ravine, his head was hairless, charred, and covered in painful looking blisters. “You talk to her!” the Troll snarled as he dropped Laruna unceremoniously on the ground. With a final snort, he stamped over to the deepest part of the creek and plunged his head in. A cloud of steam bloomed around his neck.
“All right, easy Laruna. Easy,” said Gorm, approaching the solamancer with his hands up. “We’re safe here. There’s a good lass. You’re all right.”
Laruna didn’t look all right. Her unfocused eyes darted wildly about as she gasped for air in short, staccato gulps.
“She’s in traumatic shock,” Burt said, peeking out from behind a rock a safe distance away. “It’s a natural physiological reaction.”
Thane pulled his head from the stream. “A what?” he shouted.
“A physiological reaction,” said Burt. “The body can’t deal with what the eyes are seeing. That’s why she’s gasping like that. She needs to take some slow, deep breaths.”
“If ye say as much.” Gorm turned back to Laruna. “Lass, you’re havin’ a natural illogical reaction—uh-oh.”
Laruna’s breathing had already slowed considerably. Now her nostrils flared with each slow, deep breath, but it would be fatally inaccurate to describe her as “calm.” She stared at Gorm with sudden intensity. “You! You’re with the Troll?”
Gorm backed away. “Now, let’s not jump to conclusions, lass. He’s a friend.”
“I don’t have Trolls for friends,” said the solamancer, standing.
“You might if you stopped trying to burn them alive!” Thane hollered before plunging his head back into the stream.
“Listen, Thane’s been a friend to all of us for a long time,” said Gorm.
“A long time?” said Laruna, her eyes narrowing. “How would you know that?”
“Just hear me out, lass,” said Gorm.
“Talk,” growled Laruna.
“It’d be easier to talk to ye if your hands weren’t on fire like that,” said Gorm.
Laruna’s hair burst into flame as orange light flared from her eyes.
“But we’ll make do,” Gorm said hurriedly. “Listen, ain’t ye ever wondered why we don’t get bothered by more monsters and bandits out here? Didn’t ye expect more assassins from King Handor to be on our tail? Well, it weren’t for lack of threats. Thane here’s been protectin’ us.”
“Maybe… but all of your evidence is stuff that didn’t happen,” Laruna said.
“What about the Headhunter thing?”
“The what?”
“The Rib-taker? The… I don’t remember what it was called.” Gorm waved his hand as if to brush the nomenclature aside. “The big monster that Detarr had back at the Ashen Tower. Ain’t ye ever wondered what happened to it? Why a liche’s big, nasty creation suddenly just went away and left us alone?”
As Gorm spoke, the flames wreathing Laruna faded away. Her skepticism did not. “Perhaps the Troll did kill the monster. But if that’s when it started allegedly helping, it’s been lurking in the woods and trailing us for months. Am I to believe it’s just stalking us out of the goodness of its heart?”
“I wasn’t stalking you,” said Thane, returning from the stream. It took longer than normal for his regenerative flesh to heal from burns, but the last of his scars were smoothing away, and fresh hair was sprouting around his apelike face. “I was journeying with you.”
“You can’t do anything with someone if they don’t know you’re there,” Laruna shot back. “We trusted you, Gorm, but it sounds like you’ve had a Troll following us for a year without telling anybody.”
“He told me,” said Burt.
“Not helping,” Gorm muttered.
“Really?” demanded the solamancer. “You told the Kobold and not the rest of us.”
“Oh, come now. He lives in me rucksack,” Gorm protested. “It’s hard to keep secrets from someone who sleeps next to your unmentionables.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.” Burt shuddered.
“The point is that we all should have known about a Troll among us,” said Laruna. “You should be on our side, not the Troll’s.”
“I ain’t pickin’ sides, because we’re all on the same one,” said Gorm.
“How can you be so sure?” said Laruna. “For all you know, the Troll is working on some cunning plot for its own dark devices.”
“Okay, the language here is getting very hurtful,” said Thane.
“You get used to it,” Burt told him.
“Does that sound like a Troll to ye?” asked Gorm. “How many stories have ye heard about Trolls with the smarts and patience for that kind of scheme?”
“Not helping,” said Thane.
“How many stories have you heard about Trolls protecting bands of professional heroes?” Laruna shot back.
“Just one,” said Gorm. “Back in the Myrewood.”
“What, you mean the…” The clouds of Laruna’s stormy countenance broke, and realization shone through. “You’re the King in the Wood.”
“I was,” said Thane.
“But that means… It’s you.” Laruna looked directly into the Troll’s eyes for the first time. “You’re what Kaitha’s talking to. You’re the one she’s always saying she’s connected to.”
“She said that?” The Troll’s face broke into a sudden grin, prompting the mage to take a step back. “What else did she say about me?”
“But… so Kaitha knows about the Troll?” Laruna looked like she was grasping for any thread of coherence that she could latch onto.
“No, she knows about the King in the Wood,” said Gorm.
“It’s a big difference,” sighed Thane.
“She knows you’re there,” Laruna said. “I mean, she talks like she has feelings for you. So unless you also… oh… Oh!”
“They catch on eventually,” Burt told the Troll.
“But a Troll and… and an Elf… that can’t be right,” sputtered the mage. “I mean, right? That’s just not right.”
“I understand that it’s an improbable situation,” said Thane.
“There’s an understatement,” muttered Burt. “I mean, physically it’s—”
“Not helping!” the others chorused.
“But she’s out there looking for you,” said the solamancer. “Why not just… well,
I suppose I know why—”
Thane interrupted her fumbling. “We all know why.”
“But you still should be honest,” pressed Laruna. “She might be… well, she might not… not…”
“Scream and run away?” said Burt.
“Shoot him in the face multiple times?” said Gorm.
“Refer to me as an ‘it?’” said Thane.
“Well… right.” The mage shuffled her feet awkwardly. Gorm watched warring thoughts move across her face like armies over a field. He recalled having a similar mental battle a while ago. It was hard to reconcile who Thane was with what he looked like.
But Laruna settled internal conflicts the same way she handled any other: swiftly and decisively. A moment later she gave a determined nod and held out her hand to Thane. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “I shouldn’t have spoken unkindly. Or tried to light you on fire.”
Thane smiled and shook her hand between his thumb and forefinger. “Don’t mention it.”
“No, truly, I feel terrible,” said the solamancer.
“Okay, but really, don’t mention it,” said Thane. “Or me. Specifically, don’t mention me.”
“But, why keep the secret now?” said Laruna. “I could introduce you—”
“No. If she was to react as you did, if she…” Thane trailed off as he looked back into the rippling waters of the stream. His reflection stared back at him. “We’ve been over this. I know what you all would prefer, but I’m not ready to show myself yet.”
“But—”
Gorm put a hand on Laruna’s shoulder. “Lass, sometimes ye need to trust a friend to make their own choices, even if ye disagree with ‘em.”
Laruna gave him a strange look. “But what if it’s not just a disagreement? What if what they’re doing is bad for them? What if it might be actively harming… your friend? Or even the rest of the party?”
“Aye. I know it’s hard. And secrets are dangerous,” said Gorm. “But if you’re to be a friend for someone, ye have to respect their privacy. Ye can’t be there for them any other way.”
“I… I guess you’re right,” she said.
“Good.” Gorm patted her shoulder. “Now, come on. We’d best get back to camp before the others start askin’ after us.”
“It’s just a few questions,” said the flaming skull. “I know you’re all eager to get back to haunting the ruins, but we really value your honest feedback.”
Tyren sat at a small table in the center of what had once been a cafe, though recent events had reduced it to a broken husk. The room had more gaps than walls, and through the cracks the former knight-commander could see the undead shambling through the streets.
The walking corpses seemed distant to Tyren, but then, everything did, as though he was observing himself from across a great chasm. If he didn’t maintain his focus, fond memories of little Aubey and Grandfather’s castle would roll in like a fog. The whole sensation was reminiscent of being drunk, without the wobbliness or the uncontrollable impulse to say embarrassing things.
“Is everyone ready to begin?” asked the flaming skull.
The other participants seated round the tabled nodded and groaned in general agreement. The skull had gathered a motley arrangement of ex-Humans: a zombie, a skeleton, a spectral man, the creeping shadow of a woman, and a portly ghoul with a familiar face and a new set of dreadful fangs.
The toothy individual perked up when it saw Tyren. “Here now, I know that armor!” it said. “You’re Knight-Commander Ur’Thos.”
Tyren was about to reply, but the zombie cut him off. “Lots of knights have floral armor, Ned. That can’t be the sole basis of identification.”
“Well, he does have high cheekbones, Ted,” said Ned.
“You’re the two who were arguing about the organ,” said Tyren.
“Sir!” said Ted, saluting.
Ned gave a grin that was both horrifying and horribly smug. “Although now we’ve seen the instrument for ourselves, so we can say with certainty—”
“Ahem,” said the flaming skull, its baleful eyeball staring with disapproval at the ghoul and zombie in turn. “If everyone will give me their attention, we can get started.”
“Right. Sorry,” said Ned.
Several papers on the table in front of the floating skull rustled and rearranged themselves before it launched into some prepared remarks. “Hello! I’m the Head of Marketing. You’ve been randomly selected to participate in this focus group. I’ll be asking you a series of questions, and your answers will help shape undead invasions of other cities. So be open, honest, and direct. Your opinion matters! Are we ready to begin?”
There was a generally assenting chorus of groans and moans.
“Great!” said the flaming skull. “Now, how many of you saw one of these flyers before you joined us?” One of the papers levitated into the air and flipped around. Tyren recognized the pamphlet and its promised doom at the hands of the dread lord Detarr Ur’Mayan, so he raised his skeletal hand. All of the undead around the table did the same.
“Good, good,” said the Head of Marketing. It bobbled earnestly as it stared at the stack of papers in front of it, and lines of thin script burned into the parchment as if written by an invisible hand. “All right, how would you say you felt when you first read it?”
The spectral man next to Neddard let loose a long, agonizing wail, as biting and cold as frost on a grave.
“Good. That’s great,” said the Head of Marketing. “And what was your name again?”
The ghostly man just wailed again.
“That’s our Spencer,” said the shade of the woman. “He’s a banshee now.”
“Spencer the Malevolent,” murmured the Head of Marketing. “Great! Now who else wants to talk about the flyer?”
“I agree with Spencer,” offered the skeleton.
“As usual, Rudge,” muttered Neddard, leaning in close to Tyren. “I’ll wager you’ve never seen a skeleton without a spine before, sir.”
“Great!” said the Head of Marketing. “Anyone else? How about you with the fancy armor? What’s your name?”
Tyren looked around, and as nobody else wore armor—fancy or otherwise—he answered. “I am Knight-Commander Tyren Ur’Thos.”
“We can work with that,” said the skull, looking down at its notes. “Maybe Tyren the Soul Drinker. Lord Ur’Thos the Blood Guzzler. Bloodseeker the Corpse—”
“What are you doing?” Tyren interrupted.
The skull bobbed in a manner suggesting a shrug. “Just a little rebranding. It’s what I do.”
“I don’t really want a new name,” said Tyren.
“We’ll work on it. I’ve got a few more ideas,” said the Head of Marketing. “Now. How did you feel when you read the pamphlet?”
Tyren thought for a moment. “Confused,” he said eventually.
“Hmm.” The Head of Marketing’s voice conveyed the frown that his fleshless face could not. “Care to expand on that?”
“It’s just… why the paper?” said Tyren. “It wasn’t any more frightening than the horde of undead trying to break down the gate. Much less so, actually.”
“I’d agree with that,” said the skeleton.
“Rudge, you’d agree if we said your skull was swapped with your tailbone,” snapped Ned.
“You’re probably right,” sighed Rudge.
“And what did it want me to do?” Tyren continued. “It just told me to be afraid. I don’t see what that does for anyone.”
“It doesn’t have a clear call to action,” Ted offered. “Very important to have one of those in your advertisements.”
“I’m familiar with the term,” said the Head of Marketing frostily. “Anything else?” he added, in a tone that suggested there had better not be.
The focus group fell silent, but the quiet held on too long to be mere awkwardness. Tyren felt a twinge of something on the edge of his consciousness, like an itch in his peripheral vision. He looked around and saw that the ot
her participants were sitting rigid and alert, staring straight ahead with blank expressions.
“Excuse me,” said a hollow voice from behind the group.
The liche that had killed Tyren ducked through the doorway. As the skeletal wizard approached, Tyren’s strange sensation became more intense, almost overpowering.
“I just wanted to have a quick talk about some of these proposed names,” said Detarr Ur’Mayan. “Shouldn’t take more than a moment.”
“Absolutely, sir,” said the Head of Marketing.
“Excellent,” said Detarr. He looked at a small sheet of parchment. “I’ve been looking at your list, and, well… Grimblood Darkhost? Mortarion the Soul Reaver?”
“They tested well with previous focus groups,” said the Head of Marketing. “Guaranteed to frighten anyone!”
“Perhaps.” The liche tossed the paper into the air and it disappeared in a small burst of green flame. “They just seem so… done.”
“A tried and true approach sir,” offered the Head.
“One for two, at least,” said Detarr. “Why all this effort to scare the living? They naturally fear us.”
“Oh, our research shows that fear has a powerful effect on morale,” said the Head of Marketing. “Frightened troops are more likely to flee or make fatal mistakes in battle.”
Detarr was unimpressed. “They’re also more likely to make valiant last stands or to rise up against all odds in unlikely moments of glorious heroism.”
“Yes, aha, but not as often as the fleeing or dying,” said the Head of Marketing. “You can’t win them all.”
“Indeed, but I want to win more of them,” said Detarr. “I think we need a new angle.”
“Absolutely, sir.” Gobbets of flame dripped off the Head of Marketing like sweat. “That’s why we’re running these focus groups with our latest recruits. Why, this group was just saying they thought different messaging would be more effective.”
“Is that so?” said Detarr. The liche looked around the room. “Well, what do you say? Have you been having productive discussions?”
Tyren wasn’t sure what to say, and the rest of the group was still rigid and vacant.
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