But as they’d ridden further and further to the south, the villages had begun to thin out, replaced by tiny farms and then nothing. The green lands that had warmed her soul, for a time, were replaced by stranger lands, where struggling plants fought hard to stay alive in the sandy soil. The sand was slowly taking over, draining the life from the ground and killing everything that lived within the soil. Eleanor had seen, back at the Academy, how all life was interlinked together in a complex way, from tiny insects and worms in the soil to massive sheep and cows, creatures that humanity used as food. Everything eventually went back to the soil and rejoined the circle of life, yet that wasn’t true in the desert. The life was just sucked out of the soil.
”It’s going to keep expanding,” Kuralla said. “One day, many years in the future, the desert will cover the entire continent and humanity will be forced off the land. Perhaps we’ll just transform ourselves into mermaids and live in the sea, or perhaps we’ll have to move to another continent and live there.”
Sir Pellaeon looked over at her sharply. Ever since they had fled the Golden Palace, Kuralla had been recovering from her shock, cheerfully babbling out prophecies and foretelling the future…or joking and laughing with her friend. Eleanor felt better for her now that she could talk freely, yet she was still a little worried about the Oracle. Kuralla still looked small and weak, as if she had been starved while she’d been held prisoner. Herod had fed them, and actually fed them quite well, but holding in all the prophecies had hurt. Kuralla wouldn’t be well until she was placed in a temple and had all of her prophecies recorded for posterity.
“Tell me something,” he said, finally. “Legend has it that the desert was created by a mad sorcerer. Is that actually true?”
“I don’t know,” Kuralla said, with some irritation. “I don’t see the past, Sir Knight; I just see glimpses of the future.”
Eleanor said nothing as they rode on, noting how the plants got thinner and thinner, before finally fading out altogether. The legends surrounding the desert were odd and contradictory, claiming that the land was cursed by a mad sorcerer, or perhaps even by the gods themselves. Whatever had happened, it had happened long before the Necromantic Wars, long before the Empire and the Academy. The younger Eleanor had enjoyed devouring the myths and legends surrounding old and ancient magic, yet the theoretical magicians who had collected them had been unable to tell her which ones were true, which ones were exaggerations and which ones were outright lies and fabrications. It seemed that everyone lied when they wrote about what had happened, and then the lies became accepted as truth because the events had taken place thousands of years in the past, back when gods walked the earth.
She touched her chest slightly, wondering how much of that was true. Like the rest of the Royal Family, she had been raised to show respect to all of the gods, but she had prayed often to Solaris, God of the Sun and – according to legend – the ancestor of the Emperor’s Bloodline. She had never heard any reply, which had caused her to wonder if the gods truly existed, a truly terrifying thought. What right had she to her title if Solaris didn’t exist? Yet, she knew, magic existed and demons existed; why not the gods? Her lips twitched in a moment of black humour. If she had the right to call herself a Princess because of the blood running through her veins, so too had Herod, who shared some of the same blood. Perhaps the gods had not intervened because they didn’t care who was Emperor on Touched, provided only that it was a descendent of Solaris.
Another gust of hot air blew into her face and, by the time she stopped blinking, she realised that they were in the desert. There were no longer any plants, not even a hint of animals or any other form of life, just sand dunes for as far as the eye could see. She twisted in her saddle, looking back the way they had come and saw…nothing, but sand. The green fields were a distant memory now. She looked forward and tried to make out their destination, the mountains that lay in the distance, yet she could see nothing in the haze. It was easy to see, now, why travellers in the desert often got lost. There were no points of reference for them to call upon to navigate.
We should have headed for the Water-of Life, she thought, sourly. The river would have led them right to where they wanted to go, except Sir Pellaeon had overruled her. Everyone who wanted to cross the desert – unless they happened to have some guidance magic or were truly desperate – would follow the river, which meant that Herod’s spies and assassins would wait for them there. Crossing the desert directly hadn’t sounded so bad when he'd explained it to them, but now they were in the desert and trapped within the sand, it seemed like a rather less clever idea.
The temperature, already hot, continued to rise as the horses galloped onwards. Eleanor felt sweat trickling down her back and pooling within the borrowed chain mail she wore, despite the cooling spells she’d placed on her armour. The spells themselves seemed to be fading under the influence of the desert, or perhaps it was just her imagination. Using magic to cool down was dangerous – it was very easy to accidentally freeze yourself solid – yet she had no choice. The sweat left her feeling oily and dirty, leaving her grateful that she couldn’t smell herself.
Sir Pellaeon lifted a hand and changed course slightly, towards something that only he could see. Eleanor saw it a moment later, a tiny bunch of trees sticking up from the sandy ground, surrounded by a pair of tents and a number of odd horse-like creatures with humps on their backs. A pair of dark-skinned men appeared a moment later and brandished odd-looking curved swords, before Sir Pellaeon called out to them in a language Eleanor didn’t recognise. Once communication was established, the tribesmen allowed them to dismount and take some water from the oasis, although Eleanor was uncomfortably aware of their gazes as she filled her canteen before climbing back onto the horse.
“Perhaps having you pretending to be a boy was less wise than I had thought,” Sir Pellaeon admitted, once they were riding away from the tribesmen and back into the desert. “The tribes don’t think highly of women – they’re fit only for making babies – yet they love their fellow men. They would have been really shocked if they’d talked you into taking off your clothes and discovered the truth.”
Eleanor laughed, even though she was deeply shocked herself. “And the boys let them do it?”
“It’s rather like being married,” Sir Pellaeon admitted. “A young boy becomes a partner for an older man, who – in exchange for sexual services – will teach him the ways of the desert. Once the young boy grows up, he will find his own partner and pass on the lessons. He’ll buy a woman off her family for making his babies, but nothing else; he won’t even make her cook or clean for him. Once she’s had her babies, she’ll be lucky if she gets sold into one of the settlements and put to work there. The tribes have no use for older women.”
“That has to change,” Eleanor said, firmly. “Don’t they have any women with magic?”
“They claim that they don’t,” Sir Pellaeon explained. “I suspect that any girl who shows promise of magic is simply strangled before she can become a threat, but I couldn’t prove it. The tribes believe that all magic is inherently evil and order that none of their kind is to practice it, on pain of death.”
They paused long enough to rest and eat some rations and then they resumed their course. Eleanor fell asleep on the horse, yet somehow the beast was able to continue following Sir Pellaeon and they didn’t get lost. Even so, when she opened her eyes, it seemed as if there was no change in their surroundings. It looked as if they hadn’t gone anywhere at all. The desert was starting to get to her. Even the oppressive heat wasn't as unpleasant as the endless vistas of nothingness, just sand and more sand. Darkness fell suddenly as night came and the desert started to cool, allowing them a chance to pause and set up the tents. When morning came, they were on their way again.
Eleanor felt a deep tiredness affecting every inch of her body. A wave of depression threatened to overwhelm her, followed by a desperate bid to stay awake. It was impossible to believe that they would ever
make their way out of the desert. She found herself looking down, wondering if they were riding in circles and would continue doing so without realising until they ran out of supplies and died. They passed a dead riverbed and she looked down, seeing the white bones of a creature large enough to be a dragon. There was no sign of flesh, or any clue as to how long ago it had found the dead river and died there.
“That’s odd,” Sir Pellaeon said, on the morning of the third day. “What is that?”
Eleanor followed his pointing finger and saw…a faint haze, moving towards them. It didn’t look natural at all. She reached out, opening her third eye, and discovered a complex illusion spell, well above anything she could have produced on her own. Whoever had created it, she realised, was a genuine master of magic, someone with training and experience that far surpassed anything she’d ever accomplished.
“It’s an illusion spell,” she said, mildly impressed that Sir Pellaeon had sensed anything. It should have been completely impossible for anyone to penetrate, but the desert’s odd effect on magic had rendered it vaguely visible. “I’m not sure…could it be the tribesmen, after two small boys?”
“They don’t use magic,” Sir Pellaeon said. The shimmer was coming closer, moving at roughly walking pace. “Besides, I doubt that they would waste the energy in trying to hunt us down. That would be breaking the law of the desert…”
His eyes narrowed suddenly. “Break the spell,” he snapped. “Do it now!”
The whiplash of command in his voice made her jump, yet somehow she managed to focus her magic and try to break the spell. For a long moment, it wrestled with her, almost as if it was a living thing and then it snapped and flickered out of existence. The horses reared up in panic as they finally saw the danger. Advancing towards them, arms outstretched, was a group of dead men walking.
“Zombies,” Sir Pellaeon barked. Eleanor was too riveted to move, barely aware of her horse shifting under her. The zombies turned as one, cold dead eyes fixing upon the humans who had dared reveal their existence, and started to moan. The haunting sound snapped Eleanor out of her trance, yet sheer panic threatened to overwhelm her. Zombies were the nightmare, creatures that could not be reasoned with or tricked; they had to be stopped by naked force. “Come on!”
Eleanor’s horse reared around and galloped away, following Kuralla’s horse. Sir Pellaeon paused long enough to study the zombies, settling his horse with the ease of long experience, before urging the beast to start running. Eleanor watched him racing after them, followed by the moaning zombies. The stench of death and decay reached her nose and she fought down the urge to be sick, staring at the zombies with a kind of creepy fascination. She had never seen a zombie before.
They stood and moved together, acting as if one mind controlled them all. Some were dressed in suits of armour, wearing markings and uniforms that she recognised; others were naked, as if they’d been stripped before Herod had reanimated them. Quite a few of the zombies had wounds that would have killed a living human; perhaps, she realised, that had killed a living human, leaving a body behind to be turned into an extension of a necromancer’s will. Men and women, young and old, they all had cold dead skin, tinted with an eerie grey colour that sent shivers down her spine. It looked as if they were falling to pieces in front of her, yet somehow she was sure that the magic holding them together wouldn’t fade and break for years, perhaps centuries. There were still zombies left over from the Necromantic Wars in some areas, crawling around mindlessly and attacking anyone who came within range, trying to bite them and spread the infection. The Academy destroyed them wherever they were found, but the zombie plague was hard to eradicate.
“There are other armies,” Kuralla said suddenly. Eleanor looked back and saw what she meant. There were other shimmers in the air, each one seemingly concealing dozens – perhaps hundreds – of zombies. “I think we’re in the midst of a bunch.”
Sir Pellaeon used a word Eleanor had never heard before, but didn’t sound pleasant. “I think that we’re in the path of an army,” he said. “Follow me!”
His horse leapt forward and the girls followed him, racing away from the zombies. It seemed at first that they would simply outrun them, but as they drew ahead, Eleanor realised the truth. The zombies could just keep moving and, sooner or later, even the enhanced horses would have to stop for a rest. They flew across the desert, running as if all the demons in the Many Hells were after them, yet the zombie moaning followed them, echoing on the air and calling the other zombies to lunch. Shimmers appeared in front of them, moving to block their escape, yet somehow Sir Pellaeon was able to navigate their way around the zombies. They were in the midst of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of zombies.
Eleanor forgot about the sweat pouring down her back, forgot about everything, but remaining ahead of the creatures. Their moaning still echoed in her ear, carried to her by the strange magic that held the creatures intact, reminding her of what would happen if they slowed down or stopped. A single bite from a zombie would turn her into one of them, unless she managed to destroy her body before the infection reached her brain, and such an infection was incurable. At first, urged by public opinion, the Academy had captured zombies and attempted to cure them, but it had proven impossible. The zombies had even managed to escape and bite the researchers, giving them an insight into becoming a zombie they hadn’t needed or wanted.
And then they ran right into one of the packs. One moment, everything was fine; the next, they were surrounding by zombies. Eleanor screamed – she couldn’t help herself – and lashed out with her magic, flailing around with uncontrolled blasts of light. The zombies blew apart under her gaze, yet there were always more advancing towards them. Sir Pellaeon drew his sword and started lopping off heads, but it was useless. Eleanor gathered herself and blasted a path right through the zombies, forcing the horse forward and clear of the pack. As if by a miracle, they had escaped…
“Your Highness,” Sir Pellaeon said. There was an odd note in his voice. Eleanor turned to see blood leaking from his leg. The armour that had covered it had been torn away and she could see the bite mark. “I fear that I have been bitten.”
As Eleanor stared in horror, Sir Pellaeon slipped off his horse and down onto the sand. “The horses will take you where you want to go,” he said. “Once you get to the fort, warn them that there are zombies coming and…and kill me. Kill me now.”
Eleanor opened her mouth, but words refused to form. “Do it,” Sir Pellaeon insisted. “Blast my body to ash. Do you think I want to be a zombie forever? Do it, damn you!”
She stared down at him, aware that his flesh was already shading to grey. Eleanor took a breath and summoned the remains of her magic. A moment later, Sir Pellaeon’s body disintegrated in a flash of light. She wanted to remain and pay her respects, but the zombie swarm was already heading towards her. They had to move.
Grimly, she spurred her horse and they galloped away, leaving the remains of a brave and noble knight behind.
Chapter Forty-Four
“There has been an interesting development,” Herod observed, from where he was sitting in the carriage. “The Princess Eleanor’s protector and companion was just bitten by a zombie.”
Reginald looked over at him, feeling the sweat trickling down his back. Even being close to Herod was hard now, knowing what he knew, even though he dared not do anything to attract suspicion. If anyone had known that he had saved the girl, they hadn’t reported it to Herod, or at least Herod had said nothing about it. The necromancer’s mind, linked to hundreds – perhaps thousands – of zombies – seemed to be drifting half the time.
“Good,” Reginald managed, finally. Herod seemed to have an unusual link with his zombies, although Reginald did have to admit that he knew little about what such a link should be. Was he pulling knowledge out of dead and dying brains, or merely looking through their eyes. He hoped that it was the latter. Sir Pellaeon might have known that he’d been responsible for weakening the wards
keeping the Princess imprisoned and Herod wouldn’t be happy to discover that, not after teaching him the basics of necromancy. “What happened to him?”
“Apparently his body was destroyed,” Herod said, as if it barely mattered to him. It probably didn’t. Sir Pellaeon wasn't really important, or so he’d claimed, the night after the Princess had escaped. “I don’t know the exact details. The Princess must have decapitated him with his own sword.”
He laughed, unpleasantly. “I wonder if she could make her way through the desert without a Knight and his guiding magic,” he added. “Or she might be lost forever or run into another pack of zombies…”
Reginald nodded, watching Herod carefully. He hadn’t told Reginald that he was sending thousands of zombies directly across the desert at first, yet Reginald had to admit that it was a clever – if desperate – move. It was also worrying, for if the zombies were discovered, even the most biased Academy tutor would have to admit that someone, at least, was performing necromancy. He looked over at Herod and sensed the power bubbling up within his wards, enough magic to lay waste to an entire city, and shivered. Did Herod consider himself powerful enough to take on the entire Academy?
“Or she might reach the gap and warn them of the impending danger,” he suggested, finally. Keeping Herod’s mind on the Princess was one way of distracting him from wondering about Reginald himself, even though Herod wasn't acting like a man obsessed with a woman. Reginald had wondered if Herod found the Princess attractive, yet Herod had never tried to have his way with her; he’d only tried to marry her to cement his claim to the Throne. The thought was worrying, more than he wanted to admit; Herod seemed to be slowly losing all traces of humanity.
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