by Paul Barrett
Corby struck the bandit repeatedly, the staff sounding the crack of bone and splitting of skin. Madness filled Corby’s brown eyes, a blood rage Elissia had never seen. It frightened her so much she had to force herself to rush her cousin and push him away. He wheeled on her, and she feared he might swing.
“Corby, he’s dead. You got him.”
“What?” Corby said. He looked down at the bandit. The man’s head had become an amorphous blob of red, white and gray. Blood and bits of soft gray tissue covered the end of Corby’s staff. The fear on her cousin’s face tore into Elissia’s heart.
He ran over to the corn and vomited.
Erick forged his way through the corn. Green blades and yellow silk whipped at his face. A twinge of guilt at leaving the others pulled his conscience. But he could do nothing for them other than die. Footsteps and grunting came up behind him; he didn’t dare look back. At least I won’t see the blow that kills me.
After a few seconds, he caught a stumbling thump among the footfalls. One down, Blink told him. Keep running.
Erick’s breath grew short. He hadn’t run this far or fast for years. The corn nicked his hands with shallow, painful cuts. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep going. Hurry up.
No sooner had he thought it than another bandit dropped.
Two down, Blink thought.
The remaining man’s footsteps ran frighteningly close. Erick tried to push harder but had reached his limit. His breath came in ragged gasps. He wouldn’t last much longer. He was going to be caught, despite Blink’s efforts.
DROP! Blink yelled again, but too late. A sting slashed across Erick’s back. He cried out at the pain. He fell, flipped once, and landed on his back. An ear of corn landed beside his head, the crushed kernels sweet in his nose. Dazed, Erick saw his attacker looming, dimly outlined in the twilight. The man raised his sword.
Desperate, Erick scuttled on his back. Three stinging cuts ran across his palm. Blood welled from the lacerations. Thankful the corn had done the work for him, Erick reached out and grabbed the bandit’s leg.
At the contact, the man’s nanta, the life force of his soul, slammed into Erick. Though tinged with the taint of unnecessary violence, it was still healthy and vibrant. Drawing on the power of Elonsha, Erick tugged at the nanta and drew it to himself. He didn’t have to pull hard; the nanta almost forced itself into him.
The man stiffened. The blade fell from his hands. Erick barely noticed the steel as it hit the ground beside him. Energy coursed through him as he drew out the man’s vital essence. The man collapsed and lurched sideways into the corn, crushing several stalks. Erick continued to absorb his life. Unlike the rotten onion scent of Elonsha, the nanta had the rich aroma of freshly baked bread. Erick could feast upon such energy for days and never grow tired of the vigor flowing through him. He could—
Erick, stop it, Blink’s voice shouted into his brain. You’ll kill him. Stop.
I can’t, Erick thought back. I don’t want to.
Something heavy slammed into Erick. The smell of bread disappeared, but the vibrancy remained, tingling through his scalp and tickling the ends of his fingers. It slowly dissipated and Blink loomed over him with a wide-mouthed frown.
“What were you doing?” the homunculus asked.
“Protecting myself,” Erick said.
“But you almost killed him.”
The unconscious man’s unnaturally pale blue skin and shallow breathing slammed Erick with the enormity of what he had almost done. A whispering laugh echoed through his head. He shivered. The Necromancer’s Covenant forbade him from killing by his hand. To do so risked leaving him too open to Elonsha’s corrupting influence. Killing the man by physical means would have been damning enough. To do so in the way he almost did, by absorbing the nanta, would have almost certainly destroyed his soul.
“Thank you,” Erick said, in a shaky voice. His father had told him to use the soul drain only as a last resort, and only if certain he could control it. Had he not used it, he would be dead. But had Blink not stopped him—
“It’s why I’m here,” Blink said. “But you have to be more careful.”
“I know,” Erick said. “Father never told me how good it felt. It’s better than—well, I can’t describe it. But I never want to use it again.” He tried to shield the lie from Blink but didn’t know if he succeeded.
As he stood up, Erick looked at his hand. The lacerations had disappeared. He probed for the scratches on his face only to find them not there. “How is my back?” he asked, turning it to Blink.
“Completely healed,” Blink said.
Erick also had no fatigue from his run. “How are the others?”
Erick connected as Blink lifted into the air. Elissia ran in their direction. One soldier stood by his horse, but they saw no sign of Corby or the other soldier.
Blink waved at Elissia and yelled, “We’ll be right there.” Elissia returned the wave and turned toward the road.
Erick disconnected from Blink. “Where’s Corby?” he asked, expecting the worst.
“I can’t see him. Let’s get back.”
Erick studied the man he had drained. Some of his color had returned, but he still looked sick. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”
“As long as he doesn’t die, does it matter?”
“What about the two you hit? How long will they be out?”
“At least until morning. I gave them a heavy dose.”
Erick moved toward his companions, wiping corn silk from his shirt as Blink took to the air.
He emerged from the corn to find Elissia waiting for him. The soldier without the crooked nose stood by his horse, pale and unmoving. Corby stood beside the corn, bent over, hands on knees and mouth open. Relief filled Erick at the sight of the still-living young scholar. “Is he okay?” he asked Elissia.
“I don’t think so,” Elissia said. “It’s his first time.”
“First time?”
“He’s never killed anybody before.”
“Neither have you, but you’re not sick,” Erick said.
Elissia gave him a strange look, seemed about to say something, and then shook her head. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Blink protected me. I’m sorry I ran.”
“You had no choice,” Elissia said. “It was three to one. You wouldn’t have survived.”
Erick found her assessment harsh, even if true. “You’re hurt,” he said, pointing at the splotches of blood on her face and blue top.
“It’s not mine.” She wiped at her face.
Bodies littered the road. Blood soaked into the dirt, turning it muddy brown. Erick winced at the bandit with the missing arm and smashed head and frowned when he spotted the crooked-nosed soldier with his chest pierced. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Elissia said. She turned to the surviving soldier. “There’s four of us and one of you. We don’t want to fight you, and it looks like you don’t want to fight anybody. So what are you going to do?”
Erick considered Elissia’s words and noticed the sweat on the soldier’s pale face. His weapon rested in his holder, and he had no blood on his armor. He’d done nothing during the fight.
The soldier removed his helmet, revealing short brown hair, and wiped at his face. At that moment, he appeared younger than any of them, scared and alone. “I need to take Geran back.”
“Leave him,” Erick said.
“What?” the soldier asked.
“What?” Elissia repeated.
“Does he have a family?”
The soldier nodded.
“Then tell them Geran fought bravely, and he will continue to serve as a true soldier, working for me.”
“What are you doing?” Elissia asked out of the side of her mouth.
“What I know how to do,” Erick whispered back. “Trust me.”
She nodded, although uncertainty marked her face. “You can also tell Beatru or Fathen or whoever sent you not to bother sending anyo
ne else,” she told the soldier “We’ll be off the island before they can find us. The mainland is vast, and I’m skilled at hiding. They lost. Accept it.”
The soldier nodded again, misery clear on his face. He donned his leather helmet, mounted his horse, spurred it into a gallop, and left them behind.
Elissia turned her attention to Erick.
“We need protection,” Erick said. “You’re both good in a fight, but I’m not. Blink can only do so much. I need someone else. We need someone else.”
“But he’s dead,” Elissia said.
Erick cocked his head at her, and Corby, still leaning over at the side of the road, spoke up. “He’s a Necromancer. Dead isn’t an obstacle.”
Her almond eyes widened, and her mouth formed its cute O of shock. “You’re going to make him a zombie?”
“No, I’m going to call him to service from the Heaven of Caros, if Alakaneth has deemed him worthy to go there.”
Elissia narrowed her eyes and stared at him. He waited for her reaction. Finally, she said, “It makes sense. Things certainly would have gone worse if he hadn’t been here.” She shrugged her arm, winced, and looked around at the other bodies. “Why not raise them all?”
Erick shook his head. “Lots of reasons, not least being I don’t have enough supplies. But we wouldn’t want the bandits. Having died so recently, they’d retain enough of their memories to know why they died, and I would have difficulty controlling them.”
“That would be bad,” Corby said, and Erick thought the scholar went even paler.
“We need to keep moving,” Elissia said. “How long will it take?”
“Not long.”
She nodded and walked toward the middle of the road. Erick pulled out the bag of herbs she had given him and sorted them, hoping his friends had grabbed the plants he needed.
He found a piece of willow bark, thankful someone in Elissia or Corby’s family enjoyed willow tea, and placed it beside the dead soldier. A movement caught his eyes. Corby sat on the road, a blank expression on his face. Elissia removed a coin pouch from the belt of one of the dead men and emptied four small bronze coins from it.
“You’re taking their money?”
She looked up, black hair hanging over half her face. “They won’t need it anymore.”
It didn’t seem proper, but Erick couldn’t say why. She was right; they wouldn’t need it anymore. He supposed it was only fair, a payment for their attempt to kill him and his friends. Still, something bothered him. Is it wrong?
Disrespectful, maybe, Blink answered. But I don’t think they deserve respect. And considering how she probably feels about what you’re getting ready to do, I wouldn’t push it.
Erick noticed Elissia watching him, almost as if waiting for a rebuke. He shrugged. “I guess you’re right.”
Her eyes blinked twice, and her mouth opened slightly. After a moment, she nodded and went back to her work. “Are the other three dead?”
“Yes, Blink killed them,” Erick blurted. He didn’t like lying but feared if he told the truth, the men soon would be dead. More blood he didn’t want on his hands. Stealing from bodies he could tolerate, but he couldn’t accept killing unconscious men. He didn’t know if giving permission to kill on his behalf violated the Covenant, but he wouldn’t take the chance.
He stared at Elissia, unsure what to think of this dagger-throwing, body-looting killer who knelt nonchalantly beside a cooling corpse and examined a rolled parchment she had removed from it. Her actions spoke of an unpleasant past, but he imagined accepting such circumstances were about to become a huge part of his life.
Elissia removed the leather tie from the tan scroll and unrolled it. “Blink, get the pouches from the other bodies and any daggers if they have them.”
Blink looked at Erick.
Go ahead.
Blink took off.
“I should check your arm,” Corby told Elissia.
“It’s fine,” Elissia said, even as she flexed the arm in a circle and grimaced. “Just bruised and tender. At least it’s not my weapon arm.”
“What happened?” Erick asked.
“I got hit with the flat,” Elissia answered. She didn’t even glance up from her reading, as if such events happened every week.
Erick returned to his work of summoning Geran back. Newly dead, Geran returned easily, requiring only the willow bark, a drop of blood, and a short incantation. He was a sohquana, the highest form of quana. Created from a fresh corpse, the sohquana had some reasoning powers and autonomy, but they gained nothing beyond the abilities they had in life.
Corby inspected the corpse with his scholar’s interest. “We’ll have to hide the hole in his chest.”
“There are some other things we’ll have to do,” Erick said. “Elonsha will give him the illusion of life for a few weeks. After that, other things will begin to happen that we’ll have to hide.”
“What things?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I’m a scholar.”
Pleading danced in Corby’s wide brown eyes, a need to have his mind occupied. Corby had killed a man. Not just killed, based on what Erick saw, but brutalized. In some way Erick couldn’t understand, Corby wanted Erick to help him. “There’s going to be deterioration,” he said. “We’ll have to mask the smell and disguise the decay. Or, more likely, release him from the binding and try to find another means of protection.”
Elissia walked over to Geran, who now stood motionless, his eyes unfocused. “Is he okay with this? Is he even aware of what’s happening?”
“He is aware that he has been returned from the Heaven of Caros to aid a Necromancer, as required by the Covenant. In a few moments, he will be able to understand all of us, but he can only communicate with me.”
Elissia nodded, but Erick thought a slight shiver ran over her body. She held up the unrolled scroll she had been reading. “I’m not sure we want you to go into Keyport.”
“Why not?” Erick and Corby asked in unison.
“Tell me if this person sounds familiar.” She read from the parchment. “‘Target is a Zakerin boy between fifteen and eighteen years of age, five and three-quarters feet in height, with a slight build. Hair is brown, shoulder length and loosely curled; eyes are pale blue; skin is fair, with no known scars or markings. Might be accompanied by a stunted, gargoyle-like animal, three to three-and-a-half feet tall, with a large nose, protruding brow, clawed hands and feet, a tail ending in a stinger, and pale blue eyes.’”
Erick gulped as Elissia continued to read. “‘Targets are to be killed on sight and heads or bodies brought to Kalador base.’” She held the scroll out for Erick to take.
“Animal,” Blink fumed as he rejoined them carrying three daggers and one small leather pouch. “There’s that word again. I’m not an animal; I’m a familiar. There’s a big difference. And I’m four feet. That’s not stunted.”
Elissia offered the scroll to Erick. The symbol at the bottom almost made him drop the parchment. Three rings, a large circle flanked by two smaller ones, with a vertical line piercing the largest. “The mark of the Eligoi,” Erick said.
“The what?” Elissia asked.
“Assassins loyal to the Inconnu,” Erick told her. “Eligoi are what attacked the manor.”
“These men weren’t trained assassins,” Elissia said. “All things considered, they weren’t even great bandits. If they had been, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. They must have been a backup plan.”
“Could a bounty have been placed on Erick and Blink?” Corby asked.
Elissia shook her head. “A bounty would mention a reward. These men were specifically hired. The leader said something about a contract.” She pointed at one of the bodies. “Anybody recognize this one?”
“He’s from the tavern at Roadfork,” Erick said.
Elissia nodded. “Bounty or not, I’d bet others are searching for you. Keyport isn’t safe. We got lucky this time, but we can’t count on that.”<
br />
“But we have to go to Keyport to get a ship.”
“I know, so we’re going to have to disguise you.” She studied Erick for a moment. Reaching out, she ran her fingers through his hair. The electrifying sensation surged down his spine straight to his groin. Mercifully, she only did it twice before backing up. “That’s what we’ll have to do,” she said. “I’m going to town to get supplies.”
“To town? But you just said it wasn’t safe.”
“It’s not safe for you. I’ll be fine. And I’ll be back quick as I can.”
“I don’t like it,” Erick said. “One of us should go with you.”
“I can move faster by myself. There’s nothing to worry about. They’re not looking for me.”
Erick already knew winning an argument with Elissia, once she made up her mind, was harder than catching a fly. “Can I at least let Blink keep an eye on you, in case anything happens?”
She seemed about to refuse, then smiled at Blink. “That’s a good idea. It should be dark enough by the time we reach town for you to hide easily.”
“Will shops even be open?” Corby asked.
“The ones I need will be,” she said. “You two should clear the bodies off the road and then hide.”
Elissia turned and walked toward town, while Blink took to the air ten feet above her.
Erick and Corby began working, taking the bodies a few feet into the corn. The death didn’t bother Erick, but he could tell by Corby’s shallow breathing and complexion, wan even in the golden light of the setting sun, that the corpses were almost more than the scholar could handle.
“Are you okay?” Erick asked.
Corby nodded and swallowed. “I’ll deal with it. I have to.”
Erick nodded. He knew if Corby wanted to say more, he wouldn’t hesitate to speak.
A few minutes later, the rotten onion scent filled Erick’s nose, and a brief flash of yellow flew from the sky and struck Geran. The soldier straightened up and said, “I am here to serve.”
Corby almost dropped the feet of the body they were moving. “That’s unnerving.”
“Sorry,” Erick said. He knew Corby only heard a deep groan or growl.