The Black Knife

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I enjoyed this,” Eric confessed. Hind understood and said nothing. “I enjoyed being on the run. It was almost...fun, even though I knew that Eleanor was still trapped at the Palace, a tool of Herod’s plan. And now...”

  He shook his head. “When I get to Larkrise, I have to be the Prince again,” he said. “I have to organise an army and fight a war. Why...?”

  “I know,” Hind said, and pulled him into her arms. “I felt the same way too.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Very few magicians dared to fly for long, not when a single moment of lost concentration or enemy attack could send them plunging down towards the ground and certain death. Even so, knowing the risks, Herod still chose to float in the air over Braidburn as his army started its advance towards the city. Braidburn City, under the direct control of the Lord of Braidburn, had been known as the Gateway to Gold for centuries, ever since the Golden Palace had been built. The First Emperor had allowed it to happen in the certain knowledge that anyone who wanted to attack his palace would have to go through Braidburn first – at least if they came from the south – and hadn't worried about it since. The Lord of Braidburn had always been a loyalist. The various Lords hadn't bothered to build defences against an attack coming out of the Golden Lands; why, that would have been seen as disrespectful to the Emperor.

  The army had been force-marching for a week, using a vast assemblage of horses and carts to move soldiers forward as swiftly as possible. Every sorcerer, half-trained magician and hedge witch within his sphere of control had been press-ganged into his service, assisting the logistic officers by creating spells that would help transport vast amounts of supplies for the army’s advance, from food to weapons and magical defences. Even so, it was largely living off the land as well, ransacking farms and storage warehouses for food and drink, while often having some fun with farm girls who didn't run away fast enough. The army might as well have been a chain of locusts making its way across the land. Sooner or later, the farms would have to be rebuilt and the fields replanted, but that was an issue for another day. Herod watched from high above as his army closed in on its target.

  The Lord of Braidburn had sealed the gates, of course, as soon as he had realised what was coming towards him. Some of his minor Lords had sought confrontation with Herod’s army, knowing that the devastation they were bringing would ruin the source of their power, but that hadn't lasted long. Their small forces of guardsmen had simply been smashed flat – the survivors had been taken as slaves and pressed into the logistic chains – apart from a handful that had escaped into the Greenwood, perhaps driven by thoughts of mounting an insurgency against the army. That wouldn't last long, once Larkrise was destroyed and Prince Eric’s head was mounted on a spike in front of the Golden Palace; Herod would spare no effort – or magic – in bringing down anyone who dared to challenge his rule.

  Herod drifted higher, staring down into the city. The Lord’s men-at-arms were distributing weapons rapidly, as if they believed that arming commoners could somehow stop Herod’s army from taking the city. It wasn't something many Lords would willingly do – an armed commoner might get ideas above his station – but in this case it hardly mattered. The entire city, male and female, young and old, could be armed and it still wouldn't save them. They were about to be smashed flat if they persisted in their refusal to yield.

  He smiled and lowered himself to the ground, coming to rest near the General, Master Reginald and the General’s command team. The General had summoned some of the greatest military talents on Touched and drilled them relentlessly so that they formed a team, even though some of them had refused to work together until the General had offered them enough money to quiet their fears and bury their vendettas. Mercenaries were a practical bunch, but they all had heard tales and rumours about how some of their fellows acted and kept one eye looking for the double-cross. Between the mercenaries, the army he’d raised from Azimuth and the magical firepower he’d amassed, he’d created the most powerful army on the surface of the planet.

  “Your Grace,” the General said. He bowed formally as Herod nodded to him. “I have sent a team to offer parley, but they have rejected it and killed my emissaries. They do not wish to surrender.”

  “What a pity,” Herod observed. He would have been disappointed if the Lord of Braidburn hadn’t been willing to fight. It was hardly surprising, though; the Lords of Braidburn had always been loyalists and Herod had no use for people who were loyal to the dead Emperor. A more practical Lord would have been willing to bend in the wind when the storm clouds started to gather. “You may commence the attack at once.”

  Braidburn was, like most cities, defended by a strong wall, which was impregnated with wards and other magical traps intended to make it difficult for any attack to break through and enter the city directly. Herod’s combined force of sorcerers and his own necromancy could have probably broken through the wall and left the defenders scattered, but that would have been far too revealing. The latest news from the Academy was that the Grandmaster – briefly stalemated – had been sending out Freelance Mages with orders to observe and offer what little help they could. Herod hoped that the Academy would remain out of play long enough for him to build up the power needed to destroy it – if the Grandmaster refused to submit – but he still had to be careful. And besides, Eric would probably hear reports of what happened to his father’s strongest ally. It wouldn't do to tip his hand too soon.

  He felt the ground rumbling as hundreds of sorcerers concentrated their powers on a single magician, one of Herod’s oldest allies. The shaking grew worse and then the ground erupted, a wall of earth and dirt that raged towards the city walls. Before the defenders could react to what was happening, hundreds of tons of earth was pressing against their walls, forming a ramp for aggressive enemy soldiers. The General blew a whistle as the magic faded away and the massive catapults started to open fire, throwing heavy – and magically-charged – stones into the city. Seconds later, the first rank of assault troops – which happened to include contributions from Lords Herod didn't trust very far – threw themselves up the ramp and over the walls. The stunned defenders fell back as the attackers advanced, trying desperately to form a defensive line before it was too late. Herod found himself laughing as more soldiers reached the walls and spread out, driving the defenders away from the gate complexes that would have made life difficult for anyone who tried to take the gates directly.

  “Magic,” the General said. “They’re trying to use magic against us.”

  Herod had already sensed it, just before the silver lightning storm began to flicker into existence, bolts of power stabbing down at his men. The city’s magicians were finally responding to the attack and trying to counter it with their own magic. Master Reginald barked a command and Herod’s sorcerers started throwing their own magic at their counterparts, knocking them off balance and tearing through the wards. A second later, one of the gates fell and was destroyed as the wards crumbled, allowing the main mass of Herod’s army to charge into the city. Other units spread out to the rear, preventing anyone from fleeing in the confusion.

  His skin prickled as powerful curses and hexes were fired towards his army, only to be deflected by the wards and charms his sorcerers had been mass-producing over the past few weeks. Given time, a capable sorcerer could probably counter all of the protections and kill a handful of soldiers, but they wouldn’t have time. His own sorcerers were concentrating their attacks on the enemy sorcerers, forcing them to devote more and more of their own power to their defence, while their soldiers went out without enough protection against enemy magic.

  Herod laughed aloud and threw himself back into the air. Fires were already spreading through the streets, but his soldiers kept moving, hacking their way through civilians who didn't have the slightest idea what they were doing with their weapons. Thousands of dead bodies lay within plain view, just waiting for someone to reanimate them and turn them into zombies. The waves of enemy magic wer
e fading out of existence as the enemy magicians, one by one, died under the focused magic being directed at them. As they died, so did the magical protections around the city...

  And still the slaughter went on!

  ***

  Reginald felt sick as the fighting finally died away, once Braidburn Castle had fallen and the Lord – along with his two male heirs – had been publicly killed. Most of the soldiers and guardsmen who had fought for the Lord were practical enough to know that the fighting was lost and – as was traditional – believed that they would have a chance to be incorporated into the victor’s army. The civilians, of course, wouldn't have that option. Herod’s men moved through the ranks of surrendering guards, stripping them of anything useful or valuable, before pointing them down towards the holding cells. They didn't know it, but instead of being allowed a chance to fight for Herod and his men, they were going to be used as slaves.

  He looked into an alleyway and saw three of his soldiers laughing as they tore the clothes off a young girl, clearly intending to gang-rape her. A sense of disgust rose up within him, yet it wasn't disgust at them, but disgust at himself, the tainted man. He’d had to learn necromancy, or so he told himself, yet the power now presented a terrifying temptation. He could continue to amass power until he was the most powerful mage in the world, more powerful than the Grandmaster, more powerful than Herod...and all it would cost him was his soul. He’d known about the price, but until now...he hadn't really believed.

  The girl screamed as her attackers pulled down their pants, a scream of total abandonment and hopelessness. Reginald knew that he should walk away – there was no hope for her now, even if she escaped rape and murder – yet somehow he found himself filled with a determination to make things right. He drew on his power and summoned a spell that was normally only taught to women, one he’d only learned after he had found himself on the receiving end, many years ago. The soldiers howled in disbelief as their cocks, so hard a moment before, became floppy and useless. The spell killed lust as surely as a sword through the heart.

  “Witch,” one of them snarled, and slapped the girl across the face. She screamed again, her eyes wide and staring, unable to understand where she was or what had happened. “Undo your spell at once or...”

  Reginald braced himself and used a second spell, one of far more complexity. The soldiers screamed his time, screamed as their hearts burst inside their chests and they collapsed on the ground. One of them opened his mouth and blood gushed out; the others just lay on the ground, dead. Reginald stepped forward, unsure of what he was doing, and saw the girl staring at him. She’d stopped screaming, but now...if she’d heard any rumours about necromancy, who knew what she was thinking?

  “Here,” Reginald said, picking up her torn dress from where it had fallen. She took it, her eyes wide; she had clearly expected another assault, not kindness. Reginald felt awkward, knowing that a year ago, he would have cheerfully joined in the assault, or taken her for himself. “Stay low, stay out of sight and don’t let anyone see you. They’re not going to sack the whole city.”

  He checked the bodies of the soldiers and recovered their pay pouches. They had placed tiny wards on them that would have bitten the hand of any pickpocket, but Reginald was a Master Magician and dismantling them was easy. He poured a handful of gold coins into his hand, enough to feed a poor family for several weeks and passed them to the girl. He was tempted to ask her name, but somehow it seemed inappropriate.

  “Go,” he ordered. The girl leaned forward, kissed him on the cheek and vanished into the alleyway. Reginald watched her go, wishing that he could feel desire or even lust, before he turned and walked the other way. He found himself praying silently to his family’s patron god that she made it through the chaos, perhaps even out of the city. Herod had decreed that he wanted an object lesson in the futility of resistance and he was going to get it, even if it killed the entire city. “Did I do the right thing?”

  He held the sword’s hilt in his hand, wondering what it would say. He’d saved the girl’s life, yet he knew that the odds were against her surviving to the end of the day. Herod’s forces would continue to sack parts of the city and if they caught her...he might have saved her from one rape only to push her into the hands of another. He wondered if he should have taken her back to his tent, yet that would have caused comment, perhaps even raised questions in Herod’s mind. If Herod looked too closely at Reginald, he might start wondering just what the sword he was carrying actually was. Magic-users rarely carried swords.

  You saved a life that once you would have taken, the Sword whispered, inside his head. Do you understand, now, the price of your power?

  Reginald nodded, feeling another wave of nausea as they passed a pile of dead bodies. Under the watchful eyes and cracking whips of a group of Herod’s soldiers, the men of the city – those lucky enough to survive the invasion – were pulling bodies out of the wreckage and piling them up for transport out of the city. Reginald looked into some of their eyes and saw the terror and helplessness that prevented them from even thinking about resistance, yet their lives had value. The old Reginald would have walked on without a second thought, but the new Reginald understood; all lives were important, even those of commoners. Their servitude was wrong.

  He saw, now, the true evil – the true horror – of necromancy. It wasn't that it corrupted – and it did – or that it was evil – even though it was – but that it forced the necromancer to start thinking of others, even magicians and nobles, as things. It forced him to think of them as sheep to be harvested and fleeced of their power, not as living human beings with lives and values of their own. The vast levels of power became an addiction, an addiction so powerful that eventually the necromancer would consume everything, unless he could be destroyed first. How could that even be done? Given the outcome of the Necromantic Wars, Reginald assumed that the long-dead magicians who’d fought the necromancers had found a solution, yet he had no idea how they’d accomplished it. Even now, having killed and drained only a few hundred people, Herod was the most powerful and dangerous magician Reginald had ever encountered. His wards were strong enough to protect him from anything, even the Great Sword Reginald wore on his shoulder. What would he be like if he started to drain entire countries?

  And what would happen when he died, when all of that power was released?

  Reginald had been to the Academy and he’d seen the field of ashes surrounding the building, the ashes that were all that was left of once-fertile farmland. Necromancy had done that, he knew, in a desperate attempt to break the Academy and destroy it, yet no one knew how. Had a necromancer died and, in dying, released all of his energy?

  His thoughts had carried him past the line of prisoners being escorted down to the magic-users and onwards to the royal camp. Herod had – of course – brought along some of his loyal slaves from Azimuth and used them to create a Court for him and his people, far too close to the burning city for comfort. The sole survivor of the Lord’s family, a child barely ten years old, was crying as Herod informed him that that he was the Lord of Braidburn, yet he would have to follow the orders of Herod’s appointed viceroy. In time, he would have a wife – chosen by Herod – and a family, provided that he obeyed and remained loyal. Reginald was mildly surprised that Herod hadn't enslaved him, or pushed some of his mind into the boy’s and turned him into a drone, but perhaps even Herod was unprepared to go so far. Besides, enslaving a Lord would convinced many Lords, including some of Herod’s allies, that Herod wasn't to be trusted.

  “Master Reginald,” Herod called, as the boy was escorted away by a pair of noble-born girls. Reginald recognised them as the twin daughters of Lord Mountebank, one of Herod’s strongest allies. He remembered bedding one of them one hot night soon after he had left the Academy, but she had never spoken to him again. “How fares the city?”

  Reginald gathered himself, fighting down the temptation to just draw his sword and spring at Herod. Perhaps he would die – no, he
would die – but at least it would be over.

  “The city is burning, Your Grace,” he said, finally. It was true, of course. He remembered the girl and hoped – prayed – that she escaped, again. It wasn't right that she should end up a whore, or a slave, or as fodder for a necromancer. “The population, what remains of it, has been crushed. Your word is law throughout all of Braidburn.”

  Herod laughed. Perhaps it was Reginald’s imagination, but he looked less and less human every day, as if there was something moving under his skin. “Only the beginning, my friend,” he promised. There was an oddly inhuman tone to his voice. “It’s only the beginning.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  As the ship slipped into the harbour, Larkrise Castle came into view, a building older than the Golden Palace or even, according to legend, the Academy itself. The ancestors of the First Emperor had built it as their seat of power, positioning it so that it dominated Larkrise and controlled the entire kingdom. Later, when the King of Larkrise had become the First Emperor and claimed supremacy over the entire world, the Kingdom had become the training ground for the Heir to the Throne. Eric had spent seven years of his life learning how to rule in Larkrise, discovering the limits of his power and how to use diplomacy to expand it. He liked to think that he’d done well over the years – he had encouraged trade and development, even granted limited autonomy to city councils – yet now it was all going to be tested. The boat docked and no one, not even the customs official, recognised him. He was almost hurt.