The Maleficent Seven

by Cameron Johnston

  His face paled. “I swear, I had nothing to do with that. I will find out who is to blame.”

  From behind, Lorimer wrapped a clawed hand around Gormley’s neck and leaned over his shoulder, fangs brushing his throat. “Your heart thunders in my ears, and a fresh sheen of sweat tells me that you lie. You reek of betrayal.”

  Verena drew a knife from her belt and set the tip to her first mate’s stomach, pressing until a bead of blood ran down the steel. A belly wound was a slow and agonising way to die. “Is this true?” she asked, through gritted teeth.

  Gormley grimaced. “Fuck the lot of you. I work for humans, not monsters. The Lucents have the right of it, and I hope they exterminate all of your kind.”

  “You were my first mate,” Verena growled, her hand trembling as she struggled to resist gutting him like a fish. “I trusted you. You should have trusted me.”

  Lorimer’s forked tongue trailed up Gormley’s throat. “Do you wish me to dispose of this filth?”

  She withdrew her knife and shook her head. “Goodness no, I can make better use of him. Gormley, for your many years of loyal service I offer you one last boon: if you cooperate then you may yet survive. Men, throw this scum in the brig for now.”

  After her former first mate had been dragged below decks, Maeven raised an eyebrow. “You are more forgiving than I remember. The old Verena would have nailed his balls to the mast and let him hang there howling.”

  “Oh, if he has no other use then he will die in agony,” the pirate queen said. “But not until I have wrung every last piece of information from his sorry hide.”

  “Then your temper has cooled over the years,” Maeven added.

  “Oh no,” Verena answered, smiling at the necromancer. “I have just learned to savour a full and hearty revenge more than a quick and messy murder.”

  Maeven eyed the old, puckered wound marring the pirate queen’s arm, inflicted by her own necrotic magic long ago, and knew that debt would be repaid one way or another.

  “It’s time to set off for a heart-warming reunion with our old general,” Verena said. She glared at the vampire. “If you even think of scarring my deck with those claws of yours, I will have you thrown overboard. If you prefer to swim there, then be my guest.”

  He scowled but retracted his claws and was once again in the full likeness of a man. He did, however, rip a length of rope from a sailor’s hands and demand to be lashed to the mast.

  Tiarnach took one last look across the sandy bay, knowing that the next time he stood on solid ground it would become a field of slaughter. Tarnbrooke would be his first true battle without his people by his side and their mad charge for glory or death. He had not expected those few Lucent knights at Hive to be so troublesome, and there’d be many more at Tarnbrooke. His godly power was truly dead, gone along with his family and friends, and his sober courage fled right along with it.

  “We’re a’ fucking doomed,” he said as he went off to search the ship for any kind of alcohol. All he had left to do was to kill the Falcon Prince or die trying. And dying was so much easier than living.

  Days later, the Scourge of Malice anchored off the coast south-west of Tarnbrooke. The shore party found a hamlet of farmers able to provide carts and hardy hill ponies to carry them north to the mouth of the Mhorran Valley. The peasants didn’t even complain, after Amogg tossed the first man through the wall of his own barn.

  They set off in three carts, Black Herran’s old captains in the lead, a pack of armed Awildan pirates behind, and then the hulking forms of Wundak and Ragash and a few frightened and silent sailors bringing up the rear.

  It was a fine frosty day with clear skies, and Lorimer shook his head at the farmers and shepherds going about their daily business in the fields. “These ignorant peasants have no idea what is coming for them,” he said, adjusting the cloth strip protecting his eyes. “They should run or stand and fight, not close their eyes and hope for the best.”

  “That is exactly it, Lord Felle,” Verena replied. “These are but simple peasants, used to keeping their heads down and working the land of their ancestors. Most know little of war and the world beyond a few local villages.”

  Amogg grunted. “Ignorant orcs die young. Army always need food. Orcs keep some humans alive if we conquer.”

  “Aye, at least for a bit,” Tiarnach added.

  “If they hold it, they keep it,” Amogg said. “If orcs stronger, orcs take. That is life.”

  “Savages,” Lorimer said.

  Amogg glanced back to exchange bewildered looks with Wundak and Ragash, who were keeping a constant watch on their supposed allies. None of the orcs would ever understand humans.

  “Are we there yet?” Jerak Hyden asked for the tenth time on their journey. “Your discourse is tedious, and I wish to begin my work.”

  Verena fought to keep her hand away from her knife, but the alchemist seemed oblivious to her agitation. Tiarnach elbowed her and leaned in close. “Laters, aye? Once he’s done his damned work.” She nodded grimly.

  Tiarnach took off Jerak’s spectacles and then punched him in the face. The little man slumped back, unconscious, and he carefully placed the lenses back on his nose. “Why don’t we all shut the fuck up ’fore we kill each other?” Tiarnach said. “I’m trying to close my eyes back here.” The others paid him no more heed as he settled in for a snooze.

  The journey north was neither pleasant nor free of further bruises and bloodshed – Jerak woke up but swiftly quietened when Tiarnach punched him again.

  By the time the steep craggy hills and the valley came into view over a rise, Tiarnach and Amogg both sported blooded lips and bruises, while Lorimer had teeth and claws out ready to kill. Verena and Maeven had knives in their hands but put them away as the cart crested the last rise, enabling them to glimpse their destination.

  “What do you make of our little battlefield?” Maeven said.

  Tarnbrooke sprawled across the mouth of the valley, a middling sized town comprised of disorganised clumps of quaint old hamlets that subsequent generations had joined into a single entity, filling the gaps between with more modern construction. Low, mossy dry stone and turf cottages rubbed shoulders with two and three-storey modern buildings of dressed stone and tiled roofs, some even bearing decorative carvings and whitewashed walls. Plumes of smoke rose from myriad chimneys, and a great column billowed from the town’s two forges, where smiths were hammering shovels and hoes into weapons. A spired tower reared above the town: the sole temple shared by the many Elder Gods. A watchman at the top balcony had already spotted them and was waving a red flag to alert the populace below.

  “A decent enough little place,” Verena said. “Rustic.”

  “A dung heap,” Tiarnach countered.

  The town was unremarkable, save for its location in the mouth of the fertile Mhorran Valley. It was by far the easiest and quickest route north and south by land, and the only one suitable for an army. Dozens of streams from the surrounding craggy and heavily forested hills joined together and bowed around the outskirts of the town. They provided plenty of fresh drinking water as they converged to form a river dashing towards the sea, not travelling any great distance but ideal for carrying logs and heavy goods downriver to trading vessels anchored in the wide sandy bay. The outskirts had been recently deforested, fresh stumps spreading up the foot of the nearby hills.

  As the carts lurched closer, they were able to examine the defences with a more critical eye. A low dry-stone wall had once marked the boundary of the town proper, but now a log palisade enclosed the bulk of it. The northern side had been reinforced with boulders fallen from the high craggy cliff walls of the valley, dragged and rolled into place to form a more daunting barrier. Townsfolk crawled over the fortifications, hammering in sharpened wooden stakes, levering boulders into place, and using picks and shovels to deepen trenches. Despite the townsfolk’s best efforts, Tarnbrooke had never been built with a siege in mind; it would take years to make the town truly defensib
le.

  An older man in the hose and coat of a northern nobleman emerged from the iron-banded town gates as the cart pulled up. It was Estevan. He wore a wide brimmed hat with a distinctive red feather in the crown. A dozen spearmen in newly-sewn stiff linen and wool padded gambeson, with old mail and ill-fitting helmets, marched out behind him in two somewhat orderly ranks. He doffed his hat and bowed as the carts pulled up.

  “My Lord Felle,” Estevan said, straightening. “I am pleased to find you well. In your absence I have taken on the role of training the townsfolk in the arts of war as best I can in the time available.” He nodded to the assembled party, shot Maeven a look of pure disgust, and then smiled at his lord. “It seems that your mission was a success.”

  Lorimer leapt down and clapped a hand on his servant’s shoulder. “I am glad to see you well, my friend. We are gathered, and with Black Herran we will be seven. Enough to take on an army, or Maeven will die trying.”

  She pulled a face and rolled her eyes.

  “Just as well we’re all here,” Tiarnach said, yawning and clambering out of the cart. “That lot of limp spears you have there will buckle at the first charge.”

  Amogg grunted assent as she followed him down. The cart lurched alarmingly as she stepped off and the sad-eyed ponies hitched to it looked greatly relieved.

  Estevan noticed the wiry form of Jerak Hyden peering at him through broken slats in the cart, unblinking and intense. He shuddered and edged closer to his master. As Verena and her men pulled up, he offered her another bow full of flourish.

  “Estevan?” Verena said, blinking with surprise, one hand petting the yawning slynx around her shoulders. “You look… remarkably young.”

  “I am pleased that one such as I am remembered by Your Majesty,” he replied, donning his hat again. “It has indeed been many years.”

  “I always remember a man with a good eye for logistics and accounts,” she replied, then she looked to Lorimer and back to Estevan comparing his apparent and real ages. “There are many mysteries I am not privy to, it seems. This passionless boor never deserved you. I don’t suppose you would care to join my service?”

  “I am afraid not, my lady.”

  Lorimer growled. “My man is not for stealing, pirate.”

  “Not while you live perhaps,” she replied. “Come find me later, Estevan. The offer will remain open. Now, where is Black Herran?”

  “At the northern wall,” Estevan said. “The town is working hard to block the neck of the valley, to confront and contain the Lucent forces there. If you will all follow me? I have already taken the precaution of informing the townsfolk that Black Herran has requested a group of, ah, somewhat unconventional and fearsome allies.”

  As the humans followed the old male, Amogg and her elders were surrounded by the local warriors. One of them with fancy facial hair reached to take Amogg’s great axe. She laughed. “Try take it, little male, and I take your head.”

  He snatched his hand back and nodded. “Was just going to carry it for you, uh, miss.” He straightened his helmet, clutched his spear tight and then proceeded to escort the orcs through winding gravelled streets.

  Ragash did not look impressed. “These feeble warriors are here to keep us prisoner?” The humans could not understand his orcish words but Amogg thought they understood his tone from the way they clutched their weapons tight.

  Wundak shook her head, bone beads clacking. “Humans always afraid of us. They here to stop non-warriors running away with much wailing and waving of hands and loosening of bowels. Good. The wailing of human children is annoying. Useless things do not even make for good eating.”

  “We are far from orcish lands,” Amogg said. “These humans lucky to have ever seen an orc, but never an elder. They know of the orc only by stories told of battle and our many chopping of heads.”

  As they approached the centre of town the road widened into a cobbled square occupied by market stalls and traders. As the three huge and heavily armed orcs entered, all the humans paused mid-conversation. Hammers stopped mid-strike, coins dropped from slack fingers to the earth, and sizzling meat began to burn on hot pans.

  “Look at their fright,” Ragash sneered. “Like startled rabbits.” He reached for his axe as the humans began wailing, clutching one another and punching arms, strange flat faces twisted and weak jaws trembling. Their lips curved upwards in something that was definitely not fright. “Why do they not run from me?”

  Amogg’s belly rumbled with laughter as a swarm of unarmed human children enveloped Ragash, despite their mothers’ attempts to herd them away. “Not fright. Surprise and then happy.”

  One of the children with a sticky dripping snout thrust a hot pie into Ragash’s hand and bared its blunt teeth. Another with a long-braided mane slipped a bright yellow flower into his belt and then hid behind its brood-mate. It was no attack, but Ragash still gripped his axe tight, unsure of what to do. His eyes widened in mute appeal as he attempted to walk without crushing any of them.

  “Endure it,” Amogg commanded, tusks bared with glee. There was still fear there in the faces of some of the adult humans, but also desperate hope, or so she thought. It was so hard to tell with their liars’ skin.

  Their warriors managed to prod and cajole the children back to their mothers and the spearman with fancy facial hair turned to Amogg with what appeared to be embarrassment. Or perhaps he was experiencing shitting problems, she was not entirely certain.

  “Apologies, my lady,” he said. “They’ve been told help was coming, and, well, the bigger the better, I suppose.”

  “We are the help?” Amogg said. “Humans are happy to see orcs?”

  “Yes, my lady,” the man said, standing straight and sweating as she loomed over him.

  “Never did I think such a day would come to pass,” Wundak said, exchanging wondering glances with Amogg.

  Ragash scowled and bared his tusks when she translated. “More like humans are happy to see orcs fighting for them.”

  Amogg ignored him and instead prodded the spearman’s shoulder, causing him to stumble. “What is this word ‘lady’?” she demanded.

  The warrior’s furry brows rose. “That’s, ah, what we call dignitaries. Nobles and leaders and suchlike.”

  Amogg grinned. “An honour-word. I like. Not bitch. I hear Lorimer Felle called lord. Why is this?”

  The spearman’s eyes looked blank, even for a dull-witted human. “Uh, because he’s a man. Lady is for women.”

  Amogg waited for more but that was all the answer he offered. “Humans are strange beasts. Always using too many words meaning same thing.”

  He had no answer to that, and instead hastened them across the square and through the newly-erected northern gates of the town. The wood was thick and bound with iron, but still green with the sharp tang of sap and resin. It would not last more than a season before warping beyond usability.

  As Amogg left the town behind she joined Lorimer Felle, Maeven, Tiarnach, Verena and Jerak on the well-trodden path heading towards the Mhorran Valley and the wall under construction.

  Five hundred and fifty paces north of the town at a natural narrow choke point, a black-clad figure with short white hair tipped with blood stood atop a section of fortified gatehouse. Her bejewelled hands were clasped behind her back as she supervised the ongoing construction.

  The party stopped in their tracks as they saw their old general. Dark emotions and memories bubbled to the surface.

  At the sight of her, Lorimer Felle’s teeth grew into jagged fangs and his fingers into hooked rending claws. He hissed and shook with anger, barely holding himself back from ripping into her like a feral beast. “How I itch to rip her heart from her chest. It is no small thing for a lord to swear allegiance and she threw my oath away like trash.”

  Amogg snarled and exposed her ringed tusks. “I woke ready for final assault on Rakatoll. No general. Army fall apart. Black Herran cheated orcs of glorious victory.”

  Maeven stepped i
n front of them. “Calm yourselves. Until this war is over, set your old grudges aside. Or else we will once again fail.” Despite her words, she too was visibly affected by the sight of her old general and mentor resplendent in all her arcane finery.

  The pirate queen stood frowning, arms crossed. “We all stand to gain something from this madness,” she said. “Lord Felle, we are both here to ensure a future for our people. Do not throw that precious thing away to slake a momentary impulse.”

  Tiarnach’s grip on his sword hilt tightened, white knuckles trembling with blood lust. “Fuck her. If not for that bitch, the Lucent Empire wouldn’t exist and my Cahal’gilroy might have survived.”

  “The true loss there,” Jerak Hyden mused, “were the wonders I could have created with all that time and her resources.”

  Tiarnach turned to face the alchemist, slow and deliberate as he lifted his sword with murder in his eyes.

  Verena grabbed his arm. “Now is not the time.” She held his savage gaze until he lowered his sword. “The years have been harsh on me too,” she continued, her eyes sweeping the rest of the group. “Many sought vengeance on the Awildan pirates for my support of Black Herran’s army. While there is no love lost between Maeven and myself, if both of us advise restraint at this current time, then be assured it must be the wisest course of action.”

  Black Herran chose that moment to turn and notice them. Her eyes were cold and hard as she beckoned them to approach.

  CHAPTER 16

  Black Herran studied her old captains as they approached. These six monsters had managed to survive the others’ rabid ambitions and all the hard years since their lives went to shit. It had been forty years since they had last assembled before their general. Now they were furious and on the knife-edge of murder, not unreasonably.

  Only Jerak seemed pleased to see her, offering an energetic wave and manic grin. That bespectacled little devil never harboured grudges. Most people were lucky, or unlucky as the case may be, if he noticed them at all. The only thing he cared about was a chance to practise his alchemy and to perfect his macabre art of murder. Even so, he was not without a peculiar sort of charm when he wanted something.