Shadow Born

by Martin Frowd

  “Between the burial mounds,” he recognised the Druid’s voice: clearly the Druid had once again shifted out of his lion form. “Down the path we go and into the silent vale. The path is narrow. It will take but one pony at a time. We will camp here for what is left of the night and leave at dawn. Keep the ponies together, for the doomwolves will be hungry. They are always hungry.”

  “Your will, Exalted,” Zarynn heard one of the hunters respond gruffly. “What of the boy? Do we take him down from the pony?”

  “Leave him as he is. Bound and gagged for the night. No food should be wasted on such an abomination and no water either. Let him spend all this night contemplating his wickedness and begging the Dark King’s forgiveness, before the stones take his life and the demons take his soul.”

  Zarynn heard footsteps approaching, and felt a hand grabbing his hair and yanking his head up.

  “I know you are awake, deathbringer,” the Druid’s voice was a near-growl even in his human form. “Look at me.”

  Zarynn defiantly screwed his eyes as tightly shut as he could. The Druid’s grasp tightened in his hair and shook his head from side to side.

  “Look at me!” the Druid angrily repeated his demand. An open-handed slap buffeted Zarynn’s face, and he instinctively blinked. His eyes watering, he dimly saw, in the flickering illumination of the Druid’s glowing light orb, the Druid bending over him, his cruel face close to Zarynn’s own. In the background, Zarynn could make out several of the hunters, still mounted on their ponies. A pair of large hills flanked the front of the column of riders, and he assumed these must be the mounds that the Druid had mentioned. Burial – did that mean – dead bodies? He wondered. Uncalled-for, the memory rose in his mind of Glaraz explaining that, while the Twelve Tribes of the People did not bury their dead, in older times other beings had buried theirs. Perhaps this was one such place?

  “You are doomed, abomination,” the Druid snarled, bringing his face closer to Zarynn’s and glaring down at him. “The execution ground waits for you, and the demons in Hell wait for you also! For the sin of death magic, your life is forfeit and your soul will face endless suffering. The Law mandates it.”

  Thoroughly gagged, Zarynn could not object, could not tell the livid Druid that he was not the one who had raised the dead men to walk again. But even as the Druid slapped him again, bringing fresh tears to his eyes, another voice spoke from out of the darkness, somewhere ahead of and above the column.

  “For the sin of stupidity, the life that is forfeit is yours, and I care not where your soul goes or what it suffers. You should not have taken the boy from me. I claim his life – and I will end yours.”

  “Who dares-”, began the Druid, but Zarynn had already recognised both the voice, and the most peculiar syntax, as that of the necromancer Glaraz. Before the Druid could react further, the outlander spoke again.

  “You seek death magic? I have death magic. Buvishim’te’shuch.”

  And the screaming began.

  ◆◆◆

  Glaraz Vordakan was not having a good day. The mission had been going well – perhaps too well – until the first group of primitives had ambushed him and the boy Zarynn in the hills. He had vanquished that first ambush easily enough – and turned the ambushers, once dead and raised as zombies, against their own kind as a distraction – but perhaps, he reflected as he strode through the hills, the speed of that first victory had made him overconfident when the second ambush came. His magic had swiftly felled most of that second group of primitives, yet one of the wretches, wounded but resolute, had come close enough to grapple with him.

  Knocked down, with the wrestling savage upon him and savage hands around his throat, Glaraz had been unable to enunciate the words of the Tongue Arcane, which so much of his magic required, and had been forced to rely on those spells in his repertoire that could be cast without speech. The first such of which he had availed himself, a pulse of mind-wracking fear, had served well enough to dislodge the primitive from on top of him. But in his hurry and under active physical attack, Glaraz had evidently failed to sufficiently focus the fear pulse, and it must have hit Zarynn too. Certainly, the necromancer preferred this explanation for the boy’s sudden terrified escape while the fight had yet to play out in full.

  With the primitive dislodged, it had been a simple matter for Glaraz to end him with a bolt of shadow magic. But by the time the necromancer had finished off the other wounded primitives, who in the meantime had regained their feet and regrouped, the boy had got away with a head start. Glaraz had pursued, his own Gift fortunately enabling him to track the boy as he blundered through the hills, but he had been slowed by the need to eliminate each patrol of primitives as he came upon it, and indeed to actively attract the wretched savages to him, in order to hinder them from catching the fleeing boy.

  As he marched onward, leaving group after group of dead and critically wounded savages in his wake, Glaraz reflected that the error had been in leaving the Druid at the initial execution ground alive. Clearly, the man had managed to send word ahead of Glaraz and Zarynn – presumably by way of birds, as the necromancer was fairly sure Druids did not possess the Gift of Telepathy, direct person-to-person mind speech. Certainly, the spirit whom Glaraz had called back from death to answer his questions, after the first ambush, had indicated that hookbeaks at the very least were the eyes of the Druids, and if that were so, perhaps they and other birds carried messages between them also.

  For hours, Glaraz had pursued Zarynn through the Hills of Dusk, his Gift of Sensing continually tracking the boy even while he fought more groups of primitives with his bone curses, shadow magic and death magic. At first, Zarynn’s course had been erratic, at times following the dirt paths that wove among the hilltops, at other times clambering straight over the hills. Then, for quite some time, the boy had stopped, and the necromancer had significantly closed the distance between them before his Gift tracked Zarynn moving again, and with greater speed this time. Having almost caught up, Glaraz had turned a bend in the hill paths just in time to see a column of riders on ponies turning another bend and out of sight ahead of him. He had realised with muttered curses that the boy had not evaded recapture after all, but only delayed it. Worse, the snarling of the hunting cats used by these savages carried clearly through the hills, and was accompanied, worse still, by the deeper growls of an even larger cat. Logically, this would most likely be the lion-aspected Druid whom he had hoped to avoid.

  And worse still, judging by the position of the sun as it sank behind the hills and night fell, the boy’s captors were making for the null zone, the place the spirit he had interrogated had called the silent vale, where another Druid, this one of the Black calling, waited together with a pack of doomwolves. They were heading for the same place that he had hoped to avoid.

  Once more, as he made his way after Zarynn, the savages had managed to get close enough to grapple with him. But this time the necromancer had been prepared. A spectral shield around him, invisible to mundane eyes, had sapped the strength, speed and vitality of any primitive that came into physical contact with it and augmented that of the necromancer who wore it. Thus, while seething with anger and frustration, Glaraz was at least in prime physical condition. The bruises he had accumulated during that first chaotic grapple, when he had lost Zarynn to the misaimed pulse of fear, had already faded as if they were several days rather than hours old, and his strength, stamina and speed surpassed that of the primitives by a comfortable margin. The effect was only temporary, and Glaraz was under no illusions concerning the limitations of his actual physical fighting prowess, but the time-limited boost to his capabilities might still be useful.

  Glaraz rued that he had no magics to enable him to transport himself instantly ahead of his adversaries – or, better still, to simply snatch the boy from out of their grasp and escape. Teleportation would be useful at this moment, but it was not among his Gifts. Neither was flight. But perhaps, he considered as he surveyed the terrain ahead, th
e extra speed he had borrowed from the primitives who had dared attempt to wrestle him would serve him well enough to intercept the riders before they reached the null zone. After the effort that the necromancer had put into acquiring the boy Zarynn thus far, he was reluctant to break off and head for his rendezvous with the ship with nothing to show for the last four days, but ultimately his own survival remained more important. If he could not reacquire the boy before the Druids joined forces against him, he would have to break off the attempt.

  Of more concern was the fact that his array of directly destructive magic was somewhat depleted, following his numerous encounters with enemy patrols in the hills. Until the necromancer had the opportunity for prolonged rest, his magical options were more limited, he knew. That was not to say that Glaraz was powerless against the Druids ahead, far from it, but some creativity might be called for. Grimly, the necromancer pressed on, following the magical traces that Zarynn left in his wake, pushing himself hard to catch up to, and perhaps if he were lucky to overtake, the boy and his savage captors.

  Cresting the hill in front of him, the necromancer sensed that he was once again quickly closing the gap between him and his target. The snarls of the cats were becoming closer and clearer, as were the clopping of the ponies’ hooves. In the pale silvery moonlight, Glaraz could see two large hills ahead, significantly larger than the others. Between them, a path sloped downward into darkness. Somewhere off to his left, a cat snarled again, hooves clopped and ponies neighed. He sensed the boy Zarynn drawing ever nearer, as his swift strides converged on the route being used by the larger group.

  The necromancer heard the trill of the hookbeak in the sky just in time and flattened himself against the hill as the bird glided past. Regaining his feet with more than his usual alacrity, thanks to his stolen speed, he watched as the bird, illuminated by the silver moon, flew between the two large hills and plunged downward. Its trill abruptly cut off as it passed the boundary of what Glaraz now realised was the null zone, closer than he had realised.

  Moving more swiftly than he ever had before, the necromancer sprang down the lee slope of the hill on which he stood, crossing the last open stretch of ground before the twin large hills in moments, and rapidly ascended the nearer of the two hills. All the while, his Gift picked out Zarynn’s position, first parallel to his own, then slightly behind. Glaraz silently thanked Shuchath, Lord of Skulls, and Andath, the Whisperer in the Shadows, the only two Gods for whom he had any time. He had successfully overtaken the savages who had captured the boy. Now he needed to achieve a successful extraction.

  Even as Glaraz ascended the slope, his mystical senses were triggered anew. The necromancer felt a momentary chill despite the warm night air, and the smell of rot and decay wafted under his nostrils. To one with his Gifts, the power of death was strong here.

  “Between the burial mounds,” Glaraz heard a voice below, carrying clearly to his ears, even as he spotted several orbs of light bobbing in the night as the column of riders approached his position. “Down the path we go and into the silent vale. The path is narrow. It will take but one pony at a time. We will camp here for what is left of the night and leave at dawn. Keep the ponies together, for the doomwolves will be hungry. They are always hungry.” The voice was little more than a growl but held clear authority. Almost certainly it was the Druid.

  Burial mounds. Not natural hills at all. The necromancer exulted at the unlooked-for boon. Now to turn it to his own best advantage, he determined, even as he overheard the Druid threatening Zarynn below. Glaraz snorted as the growled words carried up to him. The sin of death magic, indeed. So, the Druid and the rest of the primitives thought the boy was the necromancer? Clearly the first Druid had not briefed them particularly well, or perhaps had been limited in the detail his birds – Glaraz guessed – could carry.

  “For the sin of stupidity, the life that is forfeit is yours, and I care not where your soul goes or what it suffers. You should not have taken the boy from me. I claim his life – and I will end yours.”

  Glaraz declaimed his retort to the savages below, even as he began drawing on his magic. The moonlight and the hovering globes of light together picked out the group clearly, making them easy targets.

  “Who dares-”, began the growling Druid below, but Glaraz was swift in his attack. Before the Druid could react further, the necromancer spoke again.

  “You want death magic? I have death magic. Buvishim’te’shuch.”

  Glaraz’s invisible bolts of death magic flew and forked to strike many of the riders below. Men and ponies alike toppled and fell, their lives snuffed out instantly by the irritated necromancer’s power. And the screaming began.

  ◆◆◆

  Bound and gagged still, draped over the pony’s back, Zarynn saw hunters and their ponies alike felled without a sound or a visible cause. The screams from behind him suggested that more targets, men and ponies both, had been hurt by Zarynn’s magic, but yet lived. The cats snarled impotently, sniffing the air, muzzles drawn back to expose their fangs. Then the Druid growled, low in his throat, and Zarynn saw him pointing up at one of the big hills. As if fired from a sling, the cats burst into motion, springing up the slope.

  “Take the boy into the vale,” Zarynn heard the Druid growl at the hunters who still stood. “The Great God will not be thwarted of His sacrifice now! I will deal with this interruption myself.”

  Seconds later, as the nearest hunters who were still standing jerked at the reins of the pony that carried him, Zarynn heard the deep leonine growl behind him that told him clearly that the Druid had transformed into his lion form again.

  Zarynn heard more strange words coming from higher up the slope, in the necromancer Glaraz’s foreign accent. More hunters crashed to the ground and lay unmoving, so he assumed they must have been more words of magic. From somewhere behind and above him, he heard the snarl of a cat, becoming a high-pitched scream, and a wet, bursting sound. Moisture splattered against the back of his head and ran down his cheeks. He smelled coppery blood and tried hard again to keep from vomiting into his gag. The yells of men and the screams of both cats and ponies filled his ears with a cacophony of noise. Then his pony, led by hunters who still seemed to be unhurt, passed between the two big hills and began to move down a suddenly steep slope, and all sound abruptly cut off.

  The pony’s gait became more erratic as the slope steepened, shaking Zarynn as he hung across its back, then it levelled out once more. By the light of the silver moon above and a globe of light hovering over the head of one of his armed escorts, he could see a secluded valley ahead. More hunters waited grimly for them, long spears at the ready. Zarynn’s line of sight was limited by his inverted position, but he thought he saw the mouths of two or three caves further down-valley, a deeper darkness that the moonlight did not penetrate. Dark shapes moved on four legs in the shadows at the edge of the moonlight, and their red eyes glowed like a smith’s forge fire. All was utterly, eerily silent. The men and ponies made no sound as they descended, following the narrow path into the valley, nor could he hear a thing from the men who waited below to receive them. He had no way of knowing whether Glaraz was still fighting in the world above this silent place. No way of knowing whether his last hope yet battled or had expired.

  Zarynn’s eyes welled up with tears that ran down his bloodstained cheeks and dripped to the ground. He sobbed and sniffled silently as he swayed from side to side, while the pony picked its way down the sloping path and alighted on the valley floor. He had just enough light to see the glares and sneers of the hard-faced hunters who waited at the bottom. New hands reached for the reins of his pony, jerking the steed forward. An ungentle backhand caught him across the mouth, where the gag bit deep, another across the bridge of his nose, and a third impacted noiselessly against one messy cheek, already beslimed with blood, gore, tears and snot. Pain exploded silently through every facial nerve, but no sound escaped him in this eerie place, not even a grunt.

  Through eyes sw
imming with tears and a head pounding with pain, Zarynn saw the hunter who had backhanded his cheek grimace at the slime covering his hand, glare furiously at him, and draw back a fist to punch him in the face. His vision greyed out and everything seemed to be shrouded in a thin grey fog. Although he could still neither speak nor hear a word, he felt a buzzing inside his skull, like a furious swarm of plains locusts.

  The hunter in front of him burst into shimmering iron-grey flames.

  SEVEN: THE ANCIENT DEAD

  Above the silent vale, atop one of the burial mounds that flanked the start of the path, Glaraz beheld the hunting cats springing up the slope toward him, illuminated in the moonlight. Behind them, he witnessed the robed figure of the Druid blur and transform, elongating and packing his frame with muscle until a massive lion stood in place of the man. The lion began to advance up the slope, initially more slowly than the smaller, leaner hunting cats, but accelerating with each bound. The necromancer knew he had little time before they would be upon him and so each spell he cast had to count. Grimly, he focused his mind to visualise the effect he desired and spoke the words of the Tongue Arcane that would actualise that result.

  “Kuvishim’te’NeOrthom!”

  As Glaraz spoke the final syllable, he pointed his left hand at the swiftly bounding hunting cats, fingers splayed wide. Four pulses of invisible magic leapt downslope, one for each of the cats, for so was the effect he had shaped with his trained will. The first cat, outracing its compatriots to be the first to sink its fangs into the outlander, was hit full-on and torn asunder. Its body ruptured from within, every bone ripping apart from every other bone and out through its skin in a wash of blood and gore that spattered the side of the burial mound and rained down on the path below. Death was instant.

  The second and third cats, only moments behind the first one, went down in a tangle of shattered limbs and ruptured ribs, colliding and entwining with one another. Their snarls turned to screams of torment as they thrashed in their death throes on the slope, rolling over and over, every motion adding to their agony, their demise less instant than the first but no less fatal for it.