The human shuddered, then looked to Tiarnach as the warrior caught his breath a moment, before charging between attackers who thought they had him at their mercy. He flung himself backwards to avoid a spear-thrust, and his charge carried him skidding across the bloody cobbles straight between the spearman’s legs. A quick jab up as he passed, and another militiaman was out of the fight.
“Time’s up, lads,” Tiarnach said. “The big brute of an orc is back. Hoi, Amogg, fancy some fun?”
Amogg grinned at Penny. “Come, we fight. Fight good, or I punish.” Then she ran at the militia like a battering ram, slamming two big, armoured men off their feet.
Penny thought hard for a few moments. She could make a run for it and hide at home with her sisters, but she had to come back out at some point. Orcs were notoriously brutal creatures, and this one also served Black Herran.
As Amogg casually backhanded a man unconscious with a huge fist that could easily have crushed his skull, Penny swallowed and decided that punching a human was preferable to whatever the orc would do to her.
She picked up a discarded shield and charged wildly into the melee, shield held up high in front of her face. She screamed as she slammed into somebody and fell atop him, her knee finding a soft target.
Amogg’s laughter boomed across the square and a blindly flailing Penny found herself hoisted into the air by a big green hand. She dropped the shield and stared down at the man she had clobbered.
The battle-scarred warrior was down and foetal, cursing beneath her shield as the still-standing men of the militia stared at her like she had grown an extra head.
“Great help, Amogg,” Tiarnach said.
“Better than fifty males, yes? Hurt you.”
His blue eyes cut into Penny, chilling her blood with the promise of pain.
“Oh aye,” he said. “This one is a natural talent. Best you train her real hard.”
Penny winced. The fucker had stitched her up. There was no escaping this now.
CHAPTER 19
Black Herran and Maeven sat in awkward silence until the pot of water on the hearth began to boil. The demonologist groaned as she heaved her old bones up from the chair to take the pot off the heat and select herbs from small clay jars. The fragrant scents of peppermint, orange and ginger filled the air as she opened the lids, pondering which to choose. Finally, she made her choices, measured it out and popped it into the pot.
Maeven kept her backpack under the table, where she could keep a firm foot on it. She did not trust anybody with her secrets, especially Black Herran.
More silence followed as they waited until the leaves were steeped for a precise amount of time. Maeven looked around the modest and unremarkable home, trying and failing to imagine her dreadful old general spending the last forty years of her life living in such a hovel. It was all so earnestly everyday and boring: a bookcase containing only a handful of well-worn books, a single overstuffed armchair, wonky clay pots and wooden figures adorning a shelf that had itself been crafted by small and clumsy hands. Not a single ritual circle, far less a human heart atop a black altar.
Black Herran placed squares of muslin over two cups and poured the tea, then collected the leaves in the cloth and set them to one side for reuse. She set down the drinks and sat back at the table.
Maeven eyed her cup suspiciously and took a single scalding sip. The bitter liquid burned down her throat, causing her to cough.
“What is this vile potion?”
“Not a drinker of tea then,” Black Herran said, nursing the cup in her aged hands, savouring the warmth. “I would wait until it cools a little.” She smiled, eyes and mouth sprouting cracks and crevices rather than wrinkles. “It’s peppermint tea with some turmeric from far across the seas – it’s not available to most, but physical distance here means little to demons. It’s good for joint pain, though it seems you are more preserved than I would have thought, given your true age.”
“Being a master of life and death has its benefits,” Maeven said.
“Since you were successful in gathering the others, what does our master of necromancy now think about the chances of us surviving this war?”
“Slim,” Maeven replied. “If they have many more of those inquisitors then we will be in serious trouble. They would demolish any militia without breaking a sweat. We fought two in Hive and it could have gone very badly indeed. Lorimer’s wounds refused to heal until a fair while after they were inflicted. He found it easier to remove and replace entire body parts. They throw fire and can use some sort of lightning to quickly move from place to place.”
Black Herran cursed, more dangerous by far than anybody else using foul language. “Do you have any suggestions?”
Maeven chuckled. “More Amoggs. She bashed one’s armoured brains out on a rock. Brute force seemed to work well, if you can get close enough without getting roasted. They may wield a fragment of the power of a god, but they are still mortal.”
Black Herran took a sip of tea. “Then we must even the odds. Let us hope many of them gather around the wall once it has fallen.”
A flicker of a smile played about Maeven’s lips. “Yes, it will prove interesting to see what Jerak Hyden concocts for you. But I suspect you have brought me here to discuss the aftermath rather than the event.”
“Indeed. Come that night there will be many Lucent warriors embracing death. You can use that.”
“As can you,” Maeven replied. “So much blood seeping into soil, turning the streams red. Might as well be a massive human sacrifice.” She shifted in her seat and stared down into the hot tea, shoulders tensed. “What manner of atrocity do you intend to summon?”
“I am… unsure.”
Maeven’s head jerked up to stare. “You? Unsure?”
Black Herran ran a hand through her red-tipped white hair. “I am old and tired. It is not a matter of will but one of being badly out of practice.”
“You are not the primal force I once followed,” Maeven said.
“So it would seem.”
“I feared you might use the sacrifices to summon something truly fearful. A duke of Hellrath perhaps.”
Black Herran laughed. “Oh, it would take many more than this coming slaughter to open a gate large enough to allow a duke through to this world. The only time I could possibly have…” She broke off and instead drank more tea.
Maeven leaned forward, studying her. “The day you left?” she said. “The allied armies trapped between the fortress of Rakatoll and the sea with no escape. It would have been a slaughter beyond all belief. You had been intending to summon a duke of Hellrath?”
“Bargains were struck long ago,” Black Herran said, shrugging. “Once I ruled, Duke Shemharai would have stepped onto the soil of Crucible, free to do as he wished with all the other lands while we ruled the continent of Essoran without interference. At the time I had nothing, and it seemed like a good deal – something is always better than nothing.”
Even Maeven was taken aback. “Monstrous. But not unexpected, not of you. What I find surprising is that you stepped back from the precipice. Was dooming the world too rich for even your black blood?”
“With all my enemies dead or dying in agony, what did I care for ruling? My bargain was to summon the vile thing once I ruled, and he would get my soul when I died. Well, gods damn that disgusting creature for I never did rule Essoran, and I ensured he will never get his way.”
“Hah, you stabbed the demon in the back? That will not earn you any favours when your soul finally writhes in its claws.”
“Do you see me crying a river?” Black Herran said. “I knew what I was selling for power. And it was worth it. Are your own dark deals worth their cost? Do you think I never noticed you speaking to your grandfather’s bones? That my demons did not report everything my captains were doing?”
Maeven hissed and flung her cup of tea to shatter on the hearth. She rose and leaned over the table. “That is none of your business, you withered old hag.”
>
Black Herran pursed her lips at the mess of pottery and tea. “So very touchy, Maeven. You never did like exposing your weaknesses, which is why I so rarely mentioned them. Tell me whatever you wish, or nothing at all if you still fear this–” she waved a hand at herself, from short white hair down to knobbly ankles threaded with purple blood vessels. “You may never have another chance to unburden yourself to somebody who quite frankly does not give a shit, and will not be fussed by whatever dreadful thing it is. Of all people, who am I to judge? I am, as you say, monstrous.”
“Enough,” Maeven said as she thumped back into the chair. “My secrets are my own.”
Black Herran shrugged. “As you wish. To get back to business, I intend to use the bloodshed to summon something large or many small, I have not yet decided how much I dare. As for you, how can you best use the power released by so much death? Can you raise their corpses as an army of the undead to fight for us?”
Maeven absently rubbed her cheek. “That is one possibility. To raise so many at once would mean they will be largely mindless and of limited capabilities, more use for causing infected wounds than for warfare. Our best use would be to raise one or two military minded, intact souls and give them the ability to direct the rest.”
“Whatever you think best,” Black Herran said.
Maeven frowned at her. “This is quite the reversal. Once you handed down the orders.”
“Times change. I find it best to change with them.”
“Even if we win,” Maeven said, “do you expect to go on living here now that they know exactly who and what you are?”
Black Herran downed the last of her tea. “My life is burning to ash around my ears. I will not live here afterwards. It matters not at all as long as those I love survive. Oh, I see that expression. Yes, Maeven, love.”
“It is unexpected to hear you admit to such a pointless emotion,” the necromancer replied. “All it brings is weakness and pain.”
“All true. And yet, it is well worth it. Not something your old general could ever contemplate, is it? Do you really not remember how happy you were when you had your sister at your side?”
Maeven shot to her feet and slung her pack over one shoulder. “Never speak of her again unless you are revealing her location. If you hold that against me one more time I will go out into your beloved little town and massacre everyone.” She stormed to the door and kicked it open.
“It is good to see you again,” Black Herran called after the necromancer. “Whatever else you might think, I have missed you from time to time.”
“Liar,” Maeven spat, though even she did not truly believe it. “As for me, I would much rather you were long-since rotted to bare bones in the dirt. If you were not of use to me, I would put you there myself.” With that she left and slammed the door behind her.
Black Herran leaned back in her chair and smiled at the glistening eyes hidden in the shadowy corner of the room. “That went well, I think, my little ones. Maeven really seems to believe I abandoned my conquest because I feared to doom this world. She thinks me far less selfish than I really am, and she forgets how ambitious I was.”
She looked up at the wonky pots and baked clay figures on the shelf, gifts crafted by her daughter and grandchildren. Small gifts, but so very wonderful and huge in import.
“I told you she would discount love as a motivation,” she said to her demons watching from the shadows. “Nobody seems to consider that if I conquered Essoran for revenge, just how far I would go to protect my family. Tell our precious shadow sisters and all their spawn to get ready. You will soon feast.”
Maeven marched along the path to the inn, barely noticing the fearful townsfolk giving her a wide berth. Her mind was rocked by old memories and emotions, but above all was her unutterable glee at fooling her old general into thinking she would go along with her plans.
The old woman had lost her edge. What was this talk of love? Pah! That creature had no idea what real love was. She had simply baulked at the massive cost of her rule, and it had all been downhill from there: from proud general to mother and bottom wiper, and then on to regretful decrepit crone. Maeven was not like her – to recover Grace, she would happily damn the rest of the world.
Black Herran would get everything she deserved as soon as Maeven had all the information and power she needed, and she already knew far more than the old woman suspected. She was playing right into Maeven’s hands. Raising corpses? That was work for mere dabblers in necromancy. On the surface she would do as her general asked, but her real goal was to use the mass deaths of the Lucent soldiers to craft something far more potent. She couldn’t care less about defeating the Lucent Empire itself – all she really wanted was to kill her brother and find her sister.
After having tried to murder her and scarring her face, Amadden needed to die in agony. He would suffer an age of torment for taking away her sister. His only use now was to locate Grace. Maeven had no idea how she had been these last forty years, only that she still lived – Maeven would certainly have felt Grace’s soul passing into death, into her domain.
Maeven suspected she would burst into tears the moment she found her sister again. Her eyes were already wet just thinking about it.
“Damn that demon-whoring cow,” Maeven snarled, causing a small child crossing the street to squeal and run for safety.
If Black Herran did not give her answers soon then Maeven would wring them from her scrawny old neck, even if she had to hold every last soul in Tarnbrooke hostage to do it. Including, and most especially, those she claimed to love. Maeven had made enquiries and discovered Black Herran’s daughter was named Heline, and her grandsons were Tristan and Edmond, but as of yet, she’d had no luck in locating them. Sooner or later she would find them – there was nowhere on this world they could hide forever.
If she were able to find them, the balance of power would finally shift. Black Herran knew exactly what Maeven was capable of.
CHAPTER 20
While Verena Awildan’s sailors helped with the construction of the town’s defences, she sat down with her quartermaster and one of Tarnbrooke’s elders to go over lists of goods in short supply. The old man seemed ill at ease in her company. Not that she could blame him – the rest of her party were all mass-murdering monsters, and she was queen of an entire fleet of pirates, likely little better in his eyes. This greybeard was merely an elder of a small backward town, more used to settling disputes about who owned a cow, who threw the first punch in a drunken brawl, or strong arming a fuzzy-cheeked lad into wedding the swollen-bellied farm girl he had tumbled in a barn.
The elder wiped his brow with a sleeve and finished detailing the contents of his list of necessary items: nails and carpentry tools, arrow shafts, salt meat and grain, bandages and medicine, and a number of other goods necessary to withstand a protracted siege. It was nothing she could not have devised on her own, but the man was being thorough and she did appreciate his dedication.
Poor ignorant bastard, Verena thought. A siege of this place would never last long enough to need so many supplies. She handed the list to her quartermaster. “Take a horse and return to the Scourge of Malice. See that the necessary items are delivered with haste.” He nodded, tucked the paper into a pouch, bowed and departed.
“So, tell me,” Verena said. “How are you taking the revelation that your town’s elder is Black Herran?”
The man swallowed and his liver-spotted hands trembled. “I dare not speak of it, Your Majesty.”
“That good is it? Well, I would have been most shocked to have shared meat and drink with the woman next door for years, only to discover that she dallies with demons and is the most infamous woman in history.”
His face tinged green.
“Best to be on her side, I think, than to be her enemy,” she admitted. “I find myself curious though – this Elder Dalia that you thought you knew, what was she like?”
He took a deep shuddering breath, and his eyes became distant and gl
azed. “Stern and unforgiving, a tyrant with a velvet glove. She was never shy about putting her opinion forward, but she was… kind. Yes, kind, if you can believe that of her. She believed that people could make good on their mistakes.” He sniffed and gritted his teeth. “As if she could ever be forgiven for so much bloodshed and horror. Her poor, damned daughter…” He started, and clamped his lips shut in fear of revealing more of his thoughts.
Verena smiled, pointedly. He would do her favours and provide information if asked, now that she had obtained enough to have him eviscerated atop a black altar. Who knew if Black Herran would even care about casual insults these days, but the important thing was that he feared it, and feared Verena would pass his words on.
“Do keep me informed of her plans,” Verena said. “I am reasonable, my friend, and not a monster like the rest. I will do my best to get you all out of this alive. I do what is best for my people, and for my allies. Do we understand each other?”
He nodded then scuttled away to safety, and no doubt a stiff drink.
She stood and stretched her sore muscles. At her age, long cart rides were bone-shaking affairs best avoided, and the pain and stiffness would last for days afterwards. She would be glad to get back to sea and leave these doomed people to their fate. If what the others encountered in Hive was any indication, then the holy knights of the Lucent Empire were more dangerous than she had feared. Could this group of villains even stand against an army? Black Herran was old, but Verena Awildan knew that only made her more dangerous.
The young might suggest that being old meant she had less time to lose, but Verena was old herself and quite happy to go on living, thank you very much. “Save the children!” people cried when their ships were going down – as if the young had any more right to go on living than the old. The young had years weighed on their side, but the old could lose children they had brought into the world and friends they had spent decades travelling through life with. Verena would say Black Herran had as much to lose as anyone, which made her desperate. And Verena found desperation in a demonologist of her power to be a blood-chilling prospect.
The Maleficent Seven Page 18