The Necromancer Series Box Set

by Deck Davis

  “Where’s the cleric?” he said.

  His voice was unusually high, and completely out of fitting from how terrifying he looked.

  Wood scraped on the floor as Henwright stood up from one of the church pews. Priest Mossaraya approached from the end of the church, near the altar.

  “Studs?” said Henwright.

  The instructor and the blood-covered man locked eyes, and Jakub was surprised to see just as much anger in Henwright’s.

  “Found the Gods, Henwright? A man like you needs them.”

  “You two know each other?” said Jakub.

  “This is Studs Godwin. For my sins, I know him.”

  “Where’s the cleric?” asked Studs.

  Mossaraya crossed his arms. “I do not know what’s happened to you, good man, but Hosandra is occupied, and today is not a healing day. You will have to come back on-”

  Studs took two steps and then lashed his morning star at the priest. The metal balls collided with his cheek and the barbs dug into skin, and when Studs pulled the weapon back, it tore off a chunk of flesh.

  Mossaraya screamed and fell to his knees, holding his hand to his face as blood rushed over his fingers.

  Henwright backed away, further down the wooden pew.

  Jakub eyed the exit. It was behind Studs, and with a little luck he felt like he could avoid getting his face torn off as he made toward it.

  That’d leave Hosandra and Witas here with Studs. She was a cleric, not a fighter, and Witas wasn’t going to be any help.

  This man, though. Jakub knew his limitations, and he knew he couldn’t take him.

  Mossaraya sobbed now. He backed away so he was sitting against the pew, staring at Studs out of his uncovered eye. His hand was stained red, and the trickles had reached his wrist and then disappeared under his cassock.

  “Gods,” he whimpered. “This is a church.”

  Studs pointed his morning star at Jakub. “You,” he said. “Who are you?”

  Henwright joined studs now, standing beside him. “He’s the necromancer I sent to you. The one you evidently couldn’t collect.”

  CHAPTER 79

  The bastard of an instructor had cast his lot with the blood-covered, high-voiced berserker, and the two of them stared at Jakub now.

  Part of him couldn’t blame Henwright; part of him would have been tempted to do the same. He guessed there was a survival instinct in everyone that would make them act in an appalling way in the right circumstances.

  He knew there was a version of himself that would have been just as reprehensible, the version that would do or say anything to protect himself. Maybe everyone had that part of themselves.

  The difference was that he’d have fought through it, beaten it down, and figured out a way to stop this.

  Studs was becoming angrier now, his cheeks flushing red, his grip on his weapons so tight his knuckles were pure white.

  “You killed her,” he said, pointing his Morningstar along with the accusation. “You and the cleric bastard.”

  Her?

  It took Jakub a few second to wonder who he was talking about.

  “You mean the woman in the Rats’ Palace? The necromancer?”

  “Her name is Ella-Faye.”

  Mossaraya was crawling away now, holding his hand against his face as though it would fuse his torn skin back together, leaving a trail of blood over the church floor.

  Jakub noticed that Henwright had backed away from Studs. Henwright knew him but he was scared of him, and Jakub felt the same.

  It was one thing looking at death after the fact, at studying corpses on a gurney or in the academy. It was another thing entirely to face death head-on; death had two sides – the before and the after. The after was calm, it was the afterlives, the journey of the soul.

  The before terrified him, and even more so the idea that he’d face it at the hands of this lunatic.

  “Now listen,” said Jakub, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture.

  “Don’t tell me to fucking listen.”

  “Okay. But we went into the Rats’ Palace to find a shop. We followed the red dragons, and she was waiting for us. She attacked us.”

  Studs waved his Morningstar at him. “I know she fucking did! We set it up! I should have stayed with her.”

  He was on the edge of explosion. All it had taken was one word from Mossaraya and the priest had taken a morning star to the face. It was only their distance away from each other that kept Studs from trying it on Jakub.

  What would he use on him? The morning star and its skin-ripping barbs, or would he beat him to mulch with his knobkerrie?

  Either one made him want to back away as far as he could. Shamefully, it made him want to leave the church, leave Witas and Hosandra.

  “The things I’ll do to you,” said Studs. “I’ll save some of my special routines for you. The real nasty shit that they never let me use in the inquisitors, things that Hackett didn’t even let me use.”

  “She was special to you. I get it, you’re angry. Did you expect us not to defend ourselves?”

  “I should have stayed with her. But you’ll answer for it now.”

  Jakub realized then that Studs had sought him out for revenge, but his anger was really about himself. He seemed to be furious that he’d left Ella alone to face Jakub and Witas.

  Well, she was a master necromancer. She should have been able to take them in theory, but even masters weren’t invincible.

  That was it; that was why Studs was so enraged.

  “It’s not your fault,” said Jakub, unable to believe he was trying to comfort a man who had set up his own ambush. “There were two of us, it wasn’t a fair fight. You’re not to blame.”

  Just calm down, he thought. Lose a little of your steam.

  “What’s this all about?” he continued. “You’re taking glyphlines, I know that much. But why?”

  “Simple,” said Studs. “The academy controls half the mana, essence, whatever the hell you want to call it, in the Queendom. They give it only to their students; to the ones whose minds they have shaped from a young age, to the ones they’ve indoctrinated so they will use their magic in the way the academy, and the Queen, wants.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “If a child has the potential to use magic, but is more of a free-thinker than the academy would like, he is either not accepted to the academy, or expelled. Then, his gift withers.”

  “It isn’t about free-thinking,” said Jakub. “It’s about weighing the dangers. That why they do their tests – if they think a kid could turn out dangerous, they don’t give him potentially destructive magic training.”

  “And who decides that? Who in your academy can possibly know how a child might turn out?” said Studs.

  “Well, they have plenty to draw on, don’t they? Mage Terren who went crazy and burned down half of Dispolis sixty years ago. There are others, too.”

  “It’s bullshit. The academy will only train those they can control, and that is on the orders of the Queendom. Trust me; I know all about that.”

  “So, what, you think killing a bunch of students makes this right? That having less magic in the world is going to even things out?”

  Studs smiled. “Less? There won’t be less; we are just tipping the scales a little better. Men and women of our choosing, and not the academy’s. Those who were rejected from the academy for pathetic reasons, who we will give a chance to use their magic again with the glyphlines we give them.”

  “You can’t just give them the glyphlines. That’ll never work.”

  “Oh, but it will.”

  “And then what? You’re going to take on the whole Queendom?”

  “Don’t be so stupid,” said Studs. “We don’t care about that. Bendeldrick wants the glyphline apparatus your academy guards so carefully. He couldn’t care less about the Queen. Once Hackett takes the glyphlines to him, your academy won’t be able to do a thing.”

  “You’re deluded.�
��

  Studs gripped his morning star harder. The chains rattled when he pointed it. “Perhaps, but I don’t mind if I am. I’m here for Ella, now. For what you did. One death pays for another.”

  There was no reasoning with him, but maybe he could reason with someone else.

  “Henwright?” Jakub said. “You’re a master too. You can do something.”

  Henwright wouldn’t take his eyes off the short man. “Studs knows which side I stand on.”

  “You should stand with the academy.”

  “When a man has a morning star and a club, you stand with him.”

  Jakub ran through his inventory in his mind; there was nothing. Nothing that would help except his sword, and he wasn’t stupid enough to think he was a match for Studs.

  What about spells?

  Summoning Ludwig wouldn’t help, and there weren’t any creatures to resurrect.

  Maybe there was something, though.

  He focussed on the floor under Stud’s feet and he spoke the spellword of Summon Bound, hoping to conjure a portal to the Greylands right underneath Studs.

  As he did, Henwright spoke a spellword of his own.

  Where the portal had started to appear, a black tar now dribbled over, covering it. Studs stepped out of it, and when he lifted his boot a long trail of black gloop stretched with it.

  Jakub had no idea what spell Henwright had used, but it had stopped him opening his portal.

  “Thanks,” said Studs. “Is there anything else I should worry about before I tear this lad apart?”

  “He’s a novice; he barely knows anything.”

  “I’m a journeyman, actually,” said Jakub.

  “You’re sure he can’t hurt me?” asked Studs.

  Henwright shook his head. “A necromancer’s spells are rarely offensive in their nature.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  Studs ran forward then, charging at Henwright and swinging his arm.

  The ball of his morning star flew in an arc and cracked through Henwright’s skull.

  The instructor didn’t even cry out; he went limp and fell to the floor, his eyes wide open and white.

  With Mossaraya having crawled to the other side of the church and passed out, Henwright presumably dead, and Witas and Hosandra in the crypt, Jakub found himself alone with Studs.

  CHAPTER 80

  He could run by Studs, get to the church doors, and just sprint away. Hells, even the guardship headquarters would be a safer place.

  And then he could spend the next fifty years of his life avoiding mirrors, unable to look himself in the eyes.

  Studs, standing beside Henwright’s body, flicked his morning star out at Jakub.

  Jakub flinched, moved himself back and well out of reach. It had been a testing shot, maybe even just an act of rage, but seeing it coming at him and having watched what it did to Mossaraya and Henwright, Jakub wanted to be well away.

  As he reached for his own sword, his hand was shaking.

  Pathetic, he told himself.

  And then, a voice spoke in his head.

  Fear is just a truth, said Mancerno. It isn’t pathetic to feel fear; only if you let it stop you. I am with you, shade brother. You won’t die at the hands of this man.

  The voice was strangely comforting. Jakub couldn’t believe it, but he was happy to have Mancerno with him.

  Studs stepped forward and heaved his morning star at Jakub. The chains rattled and straightened to full length, but Jakub stepped backward more confidently this time, letting them fall in an arc a good two feet away.

  Getting himself together a little, something occurred to him.

  Death Puppet. It was a spell he’d earned that let him transfer his consciousness into a dead body and move within it.

  He could cast himself into Henwright, who was on the floor behind Studs.

  But in the process, Studs would still destroy Jakub’s body when he wasn’t in it.

  Damn it, he thought.

  Keep calm, brother.

  Brother. Mancerno kept saying the word, but Jakub had never had a brother.

  Was this his family now? A corpse-raising, dark version of one? Would his shade serve to fill the hole that he’d had for years, one that Kortho had helped with?

  He’d process it later.

  All that mattered was that he felt invigorated, he felt like he wasn’t alone.

  He wasn’t going to leave Witas or Hosandra, but he wasn’t going to die without making this bastard hurt.

  CHAPTER 81

  Holding his sword, he stepped forward toward Studs, goading him into taking a swing. When the morning star cut an arc toward him, he moved out of reach and then charged at Studs.

  Studs’ instincts were too good; he dropped the morning star and spun around, and Jakub saw the knobkerrie flying at his head, too quick for him to dodge.

  Bones crunched, pain exploded across his face.

  Something clouded his vision – tears? Blood?

  He didn’t know, didn’t care, he couldn’t concentrate on anything except the utter agony tearing through his face.

  But he knew another blow was going to come.

  “I’m enjoying this more than I’d hoped,” said Studs.

  His voice sounded like he was to the right of Jakub.

  He stepped left, and he wiped his hand across his face, he rubbed his eyes and blinked until his vision came back in spots.

  His skull was pounding. It felt like it was ready to explode into a thousand fragments and scatter across the room in a mess of bones and blood and pulp.

  His sidestep had given him breathing room but only a second of it, because then Studs was on him again, moving faster than his bulk suggested he could.

  Jakub saw the knobkerrie coming at him.

  He avoided it by an inch, but now he felt ice spread through him, he felt adrenaline trigger in him every time Studs moved.

  Studs wasted no time swinging again, and Jakub moved backward but he tripped, and found himself falling down onto something soft.

  It was Henwright’s body. Even in death the bastard had betrayed him.

  The knobkerrie came at his face again, faster and stronger this time.

  Jakub raised his sword to deflect it, and felt the furious strength rattle through his blade and into his knuckles, spreading a flare of pain.

  That was something they never told you about sword play in the bard’s tales; every blow you parried rattled your bones.

  Studs struck again, and this time when Jakub defended against the blow, the pain was so intense he dropped his sword.

  He was on the floor now, his skull aching, blackspots on the edges of his vision, his blight-infected stomach gurgling.

  No weapons, no friends.

  “When they bring Ella back, I’ll let her watch this,” said Studs. “I know that spell you all use. She’ll enjoy it.”

  CHAPTER 82

  Jakub tried to get to his feet, but his hands slipped over a slick of blood. Maybe Henwright’s, maybe Mossaraya’s, Jakub didn’t care.

  All he knew was that Studs was advancing on him, his knobkerrie raised and ready to beat him to death.

  He scurried back. Like the rat he’d reanimated in the Palace, he moved across the floor, going backwards and as far away from Studs as he could.

  That was when he noticed two things, and together they fired a spark in his brain, fusing in his adrenaline-shot mind into an idea.

  He moved back just a few more feet, and then he stopped.

  He breathed out, acting as if he was just too exhausted to keep going, and he let Studs walk level with him.

  “Some parts of this will happen quickly,” said Studs, “But the best ones will be slow. Slow enough for Ella to enjoy watching them when I force those academy bastards to bring her back.”

  Studs raised the knobkerrie above him, his gaze not on Jakub’s head but on his knees.

  He was going to cripple him.

  Jakub spoke the spellword of Reanimate and
sent his essence to the suitcase beside Studs.

  Hands shot out and gripped the edges. Studs noticed and stepped right, his eyes a little unsure.

  A head appeared now. A chubby face, curly hair, his skin bloodied.

  “Recognise him?” said Jakub, as a newly-reanimated Trout Wyrecast stood out of the suitcase.

  In that brief few seconds, Studs lost his edge, his control.

  Drag him into the case, he commanded.

  Trout grabbed Studs’ shoulders. The torturer struggled with the boy he’d killed, moving his head to avoid touching the raw parts of him that he’d flayed away.

  Jakub scrambled to his feet. He found his sword on the floor and picked it up.

  As Studs tried to push Trout away, Jakub stabbed the back of his knee, plunging the blade through flesh.

  Studs’ legs buckled, and with one might heave, reanimated Trout dragged him into the suitcase.

  Fighting against the agony in his head and hand, Jakub shut the case and zipped it, trapping Studs inside with the boy he had murdered.

  Then, he released Trout from his reanimation so that the poor boy didn’t lose his resurrection window.

  With the suitcase closed, with Studs trapped away, Jakub collapsed on his back. He felt the blight roar in him, making him weak, and the dark spots grew in his vision, spreading until the colors drained and until he couldn’t see the church anymore. He drifted into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER 83

  He woke up to the smell of jasmine and thyme pinching his nostrils, and lamps giving off soft light. His head hurt, but the throbbing was dull now.

  He sat up, and he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Easy,” said a voice.

  It was Hosandra. He looked at her and saw nothing but beauty; he felt relief course through him and right then, her face was the prettiest he’d ever seen. It was a shining light in the darkness.

  “You healed me?”

  “No. I spoke, and the divine answered. They must have thought you were worth healing.”

  “My stomach…it feels…okay.”

  “There was something in you, Jakub, but they took it out.”