Nadav turned his attention back to the others, one of whom seemed to have urinated where he stood. “Ladies and gentlemen, please sit down. Except for you priests. You three have no value and are excused from this meeting.”
Nadav waited patiently and silently while the remaining priests made their way to the hall’s exit and the others again took their seats. Black mailed soldiers opened the wood double doors, allowing light from an overcast sky to spill into the hall. Nadav glanced that way, catching just a glimpse of a crowd of his unstill servants waiting in the avenue beyond. The doors closed with a low boom just as the last priest crossed the threshold, and just heartbeats after, a man screamed in pain from beyond the door. Flashes of white light shone through the crack under and between the doors and across the shuttered windows, accompanied with crashes that sounded as thunder. Nadav smiled wickedly as calm returned to the city street outside of the meeting hall.
“Now, they will cause us no more trouble, and we can get down to the business of running this city,” Nadav said, and he planted his palms firmly on the table’s end, leaning his weight onto it. “I have been told that you are officials in Martherus, that you are responsible for making sure that things run smoothly. I see no need for waste, and to eliminate or remove you from these positions would simply require me to assign someone else to the task. Surely, you know that I have total control here?”
As he looked around the table, Nadav saw several nods and a few inscrutably cool gazes. Three or four of the others either stared straight ahead or looked down into their laps. In whatever case, he accepted all of their reactions as agreement and defeat.
“Very well. What I ask of you now is simple – an oath of loyalty from each and every one of you in turn. Declare loyalty to the Loszian Empire and enact all of my edicts and decrees, and you shall continue to live. In fact, I shall bestow upon you gifts such as you never imagined under that giant ape Rederick. What say you?”
The first to stand was a woman known as Pelena, the master of the Entertainer’s Guild. She looked after the interest of players, musicians, poets and bards, but her sultry appearance in a formfitting long dress indicated that she also looked after the city’s whores. She strutted her way around the table to stand directly in front of the Loszian, and then she dropped to her knees, a position that Nadav somehow thought she had occupied many times in her life.
“I pledge myself to you, Majesty. I shall obey your every command to the fullest, take whatever action you would have of me.” The dark haired woman reached up to take Nadav’s hand, and she pressed her full, red colored lips to the back of it. When he started to pull away, she immediately released him and stood to retake her seat. One by one, all of them repeated Pelena’s example, though some were slower than others and their oaths varied slightly. In the end, Nadav was satisfied that they knew their place and what would happen should they forget.
“Very well, I accept your oaths. I trust that you will all continue to excel at your day to day tasks and endeavor to have Martherus operate as smoothly as possible. In addition to rounding up all of your soldiers and warriors, I now enact a curfew. Westerners may only be out of their homes from dawn to dusk. Beyond that, they will be held on suspicion of inciting revolt. My rule is harsh, but honest. Should one Loszian be harmed, a thousand Westerners shall be put to death.
“I also reward those who show loyalty and value, and it is time for you all to receive your first gift from your Emperor.”
Nadav raised his arms over his head, and purple energies stretched from either outstretched hand to meet in the middle just above his head. The energies coalesced and thickened, becoming black in the center of the forming cloud. The man who pissed himself, master of the Laborer’s Guild Nadav thought, attempted to dart from the table. His chair fell, and his leg became intertwined with the chair’s own, causing them both to fall noisily. The cloud still forming, two of Nadav’s personal guard pulled the guild master up from the floor, righted his chair and forcibly sat him upon it. The guards backed away just as Nadav directed the cloud to envelope the council, and the Loszian reveled in the symphony of their screams.
* * *
True, it was a grand adventure at first, but the simple fact was that the entire invasion wore on Sovereign Nadav. He had taken great pleasure in the destruction and death he had brought to Byrverus and in the turning of Rederick’s councilors, but he started to long for the comforts of home. He had no time to himself, no opportunity to take enjoyment in his achievements, and he couldn’t even preen himself properly to be presentable in public. By the gods, he couldn’t even fuck one of his slaves without some interruption or other.
And this interruption flew him into a rage. Some man at arms left behind to hold Byrverus had arrived with some ridiculous story involving the loss of the city to the Westerners and a black armored Dahken. An army had emerged from the bowels of the palace and crushed the defenders before they even knew what had happened. The thousands of dead servants left behind were being dispatched with systematic ease. Nadav refused to believe it until the soldier opened a scroll case with the claim that Lord Dahken Cor had penned the message within.
With no one else to punish for the failure, Nadav dissolved the poor soldier’s flesh so that his armor clanged to the floor empty except for his bones, but it was not enough. Nadav had chosen a wealthy merchant’s home as his temporary quarters while in Martherus, and he flung anything within it on which he could lay his hands. Every time something shattered or crashed into a thousand jagged pieces, he felt just a little better, but that was before he found a large copper vase. The thing destroyed everything in its path, but the vase itself showed little damage, only scratches and blemishes. He finally took to beating the thing with a large two-handed mace, until he exhausted his anger and his muscles protested. Finally, his robes sticking to his body uncomfortably as they were soaked with perspiration despite the chilly air, he slumped onto a plush divan to think.
After perhaps a half hour, his mind cleared, and Nadav’s rational calm returned. He reached his consciousness out across the miles of countryside, feeling for the servants he had left behind in the ruined city of Byrverus, and in fact he found few. He should have found thousands, tens of thousands, but instead he found dozens scattered throughout the ruined streets and outlying villages and farms. Some of these even winked out of existence while his mind floated among them. Nadav continued his search and was not surprised when he found one, just one, in the main hall of Byrverus’ palace. He joined his mind to it.
“Lord Dahken Cor, are you there?” he asked aloud, and he knew that his voice was heard both in the house in Martherus and the palace in Byrverus.
He sensed movement in the great throne room, heard it perhaps for he could see nothing. It was odd, for he should have been able to see and hear everything in the hall, but it was as if something blocked his senses. Nadav called out again and received no answer, and his inability to see or hear frustrated him. All he could do was wait impatiently, and it seemed to be hours before the black armored Dahken appeared before him. All around the Dahken was dark, obscured, and a second form joined him that Nadav recognized.
“Lord Dahken Cor, I am most dismayed to see you so soon,” Nadav said, “and Lord Rederick, I am shocked to see you at all.”
“At your service,” Cor replied with a mocking bow.
“How is it that you managed to hide an army within the dungeons of that pathetic excuse for a castle? For that matter, what trickery allowed you to join said army? Last I saw you, you had just slain your own Dahken. I imagine you slew your friend as well.”
“None of that matters,” Cor replied. “Geoff was no more one of my Dahken than Thom was any longer my friend. You murdered both of them. All I did was help them find peace.”
“Sovereign Nadav,” spoke the hulking priest, “we have a proposition for you. Surrender.”
“Very well, I accept your proposition! Lay down your arms and march to Martherus to pledge fealty to me,”
Nadav gloated sardonically.
“I think you miss my meaning Loszian,” Rederick replied through clenched teeth.
“I understand you perfectly,” growled Nadav. “You think that because you managed to slay a minor lord and several thousand of my mindless servants that you can dare to challenge me! I will crush you both, and you will beg for mercy that will not come.”
“You can only destroy Byrverus once,” Cor interjected coolly. “You have no more power to throw against us. Just like a petty village magician, your sack of tricks is empty.”
“How dare you!” Nadav screamed. “You know not what you unleash! I spared Martherus, but now it will pay for your insolence! Martherus shall meet the same fate as Byrverus. After the city lay in ruins, I shall send a hundred thousand dead to rampage across the Shining West, slaying everything they come across. I will bring the rest of my host to Byrverus to stamp you out and rape all that remains of your precious capital. Prepare to meet -”
Before Nadav could finish, Rederick’s armored fist crushed the corpse’s skull, and the tendril of the Loszian’s mind that occupied it shot back to its home. Nadav raged for close to an hour, destroying everything and everyone he with which he came in contact, until he finally passed out on the floor.
29.
Nadav had to change his plans somewhat to accommodate the rather unexpected chain of events. As per his commands, all soldiers or warriors of any kind in Martherus were assembled, the city’s great marketplace being the most convenient location. He planned to offer them the chance to join his armies, but now decided against it. It was best just to put them all to death. Of course, they fought back, but even their thousands could not contest the tens of thousands of walking dead Nadav set upon them. He risked none of his own soldiers or sorcerers on the task, for they would be far too valuable in the coming days.
Once it was done, Nadav ordered the withdrawal from Martherus, much to the appalled shock of his fellows. Every Loszian – necromancer, soldier, servant and slave – was pulled from the city, including the eleven councilors recently turned. The Westerners quietly watched this occur, and when it became clear that their oppressors had no intention of returning, they began to cry, cheer and dance in the streets. Horns sounded, drums beat, and the people embraced and kissed one another that the invaders had up and left, whatever the reason. Some mourned the fallen.
The revelry faltered when some citizens pointed to the sky with fearful exclamations as a great purple cloud formed above the city. It was almost black at its center, and then it began to descend, spreading and expanding as it did so. It became more as a haze as it spread, not to dissimilar from the fog on a cold morning after a night of rain. It saturated everything, penetrating the ground in and around the city. The recently slaughtered soldiers were the first to stir, and they ripped and tore their way through their mourning loved ones as the ground began to rumble and shake.
Nadav watched with glee as Martherus shared Byrverus’ fate.
He listened to the dying screams of the city for three days, after which he called forth all of the dead in the broken city. They followed his call and massed, three hundred thousand strong a few miles northeast of the crumbling walls, awaiting the smallest of his commands. He broke them into two forces, sending half to the far side of the city. Nadav demanded an inventory of his necromancers – he wanted to know precisely what forces each still had at his or her command. They reported to him for a full day, after which he selected the four strongest and had them attend him in his tent.
“I recall the ancient name of this city, the Loszian name – it is Taq’Phol. I name you each the first lords of Taq’Phol Reborn and gift you each with a quarter of the city and its surrounding lands,” Nadav told his lords, indicating a rough map. “I task you with rebuilding Taq’Phol for the Loszian Empire. Make it strong again. Go forth and claim your lands, enslave all who oppose us. Raise our towers over Taq’Phol once more!”
It took the better part of a fourth day for the four Loszians to separate their forces from his host and march them into the city. Rather than start his journey back toward Byrverus with only a few hours of daylight left, Nadav decided to retire to his tent for last night. He prepared a tonic that would take him deep into meditation and stared into its vermilion depth, as if the tonic itself would provide him some insight into the universe. He poured it into a horn and raised the horn to his lips, but halted at the last moment. Nadav thought of the hundred and a half thousand corpses that stood several miles away to the south and west. With a single thought, he sent them stumbling through Aquis to destroy everything in their path. As the vermilion liquid burned his throat, gooseflesh rose on his arms.
Tomorrow, he thought, tomorrow I begin my return to Kythol. I’ll kill them all. I’ll kill them all…
* * *
“Cor, I’ve come to trust you, but I doubt the wisdom of this course of action,” Rederick said. “I fought the dead by the thousands once already, and we were overwhelmed. We lost the city.”
After they took the palace, they had used its main hall, the throne room, as their war room. As they freed the entirety of the city, this did not change, and the great plain table was covered with maps, diagrams, drawings and reports. Rederick and Cor sat at either end of the table, the former with his paladins to each side and the latter with Keth and Thyss. About a half dozen officers filled in the spaces between them.
“Then you had no idea what you faced or that it would come out of the very ground beneath your feet,” Cor argued. “This time, you have soldiers that have already whet their blades against this particular foe. You have us. Nadav will not be able to surprise you again. In fact, he thinks us weak, and he will simply throw his entire host against us immediately.”
“The Loszians will have fifty times our numbers,” Mora said darkly. “How do you propose we hold off such an insurmountable force?”
“Yes,” agreed Thyss, but her smile was mischievous, “how do you?”
“The city is in ruins, correct? Many of the streets are damaged, the buildings unsafe. We can use that to our advantage,” Cor explained.
“What are you thinking?” asked Rederick.
“That we destroy the city even more,” Cor said, receiving silence and blank stares in return. “We can block off the vast majority of the lanes and avenues, forcing the Loszians to approach us certain ways. They will have no choice. As they crawl through the city, we can push over walls and drop masonry on them as they pass. If we plan it right, we may even be able to break their army up.
“I know this – Thyss can lay waste to hundreds upon hundreds of Nadav’s enslaved corpses at a time. Keth and I, fighting side by side in a tight space, can fight them almost indefinitely. If we can force them to flow down paths of our choosing, one Westerner is worth a hundred of them.”
“Lord Dahken, I don’t know if you are aware of the hope you inspire,” Rederick said, his chair creaking as he leaned backward. He smiled wryly. “I hope it is not false hope.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Cor mused, “but I may be able to rid us of Nadav’s dead army with one blow. Thyss has explained to us, and I have seen it myself, that if one of these Loszian sorcerers dies, all of his magic dies with him. If I can kill Nadav, his army will be all but gone. I don’t believe the rest of his Loszian nobles and soldiers will continue to fight.”
“And uh…” Rederick’s chair clacked as he leaned forward and it hit the floor hard, “how do you intend to get anywhere near Nadav?”
“One problem at a time, My Lord. How much time do you expect we have to prepare?”
As he considered the question, Rederick scratched at his bold chin, which had sprouted a black and scraggly beard as he had stopped shaving. “The dead do not move quickly. A month? Maybe a little more.”
They spent the next hours pouring over detailed maps and schematics of what Byrverus once looked like, during which Thyss grew bored and wandered off to find her son. It was agreed that the first task to be completed
involved a new and detailed map of the city to be created. Once they knew the exact layout as it stood, they could go about toppling even more buildings to block streets for ambushes, create choke points and generally force the Loszian horde to move through the city at their behest. With the plan taking shape, the various officers and captains were dismissed tend to the duty of assigning men to the task.
“I should go as well,” said Keth as he stood from the table, “to check on the Dahken. If I hurry, one or two may be ready to stand with us in battle.”
“Stay Keth. That can wait.” Cor motioned for Keth to retake his seat. “I will not lose any of our people in this fight. One half trained Dahken may be more dangerous to us fighting than not. Their time will come.
“Lord Rederick, there’s a matter to be discussed. What will become of this – our alliance – when this battle is over?”
“Are we not putting the cart before the horse?” Rederick asked. “Let us somehow win this battle, somehow kill the Loszian emperor, and then we’ll have that conversation.”
“No,” Cor replied, and his refusal to let the matter lie caused the paladins to stir uneasily. “Rederick, you’re a good man, and we’ve come to trust each other if not be friends. I think by now that you know we Dahken are not evil, but I must do what is right for my people as well as the Shining West.”
Darkness and Steel Page 24