The necromancer and the demonologist were sequestered away to discuss their vile magical practices, and Verena was more than happy to let them get on with it without her. She rubbed her slynx’s ears and it yawned and playfully nibbled on a finger. At least her lazy little pet provided her some protection against magic until this dreadful business was settled. The further away the better when they unleashed their unnatural powers. The naive townsfolk had no conception of what was about to overtake Tarnbrooke. It would scar them for life if they somehow managed to survive it. Necromancy and demonology married in mass death could only birth a new wave of horrors into this gods-forsaken valley.
Verena had no intention of being here when that happened. She would sleep much better if the Lucent Empire and Black Herran obliterated each other in the coming weeks. Speaking of sleep, dusk had fallen and her back ached for a good hammock beneath it.
Lorimer rather liked the Mhorran Valley. It was rugged and sparse, a maze of jagged rock and gushing streams, sheer stone cliffs and hidden dells populated with mountain ash and blackthorn. It reminded him of where his hill-top ancestral mansion sat, back in Fade’s Reach.
“Damn those vermin that now infest it,” he snarled. Anger throbbed through his veins at the thought of their muddy boots tramping through his halls and of the portraits and artefacts of his ancestors desecrated and looted.
It was his home. One way or another he would have it back and hunt all those despoilers down, even if it meant dealing with old betrayers instead of ripping out their withered hearts and eating it in front of them. For a moment he indulged in fantasies of doing just that to the necromancer, but it was a hollow feeling. Other than his loyal servant Estevan, his home and people were all he held dear in this world.
He loped along a rocky ridge on all fours, vaulted a crevice and scrabbled up a wide slope of snow and scree to achieve the peak of the hill. The white-wreathed valley spread out below him like a vast icy snake. It was ruggedly beautiful.
Wind and drizzle lashed his exposed flesh and he luxuriated in the emotional scouring that accompanied the physical. It was regrettable that he had lost control at the sight of his old general; indeed she had manipulated him into attempting to kill her before he was ready, just so she could stamp her authority on them once again. Maeven was already in thrall to Black Herran, it seemed. He should not have been surprised at that. Her blood oath would force her to aid him, but she would still play both sides to her own benefit whenever possible.
The machinations of magic users disgusted him, trying to twist others to serve their purposes as they did with their demons and their risen dead. He would not have it. Reluctant allies perhaps, but none would ever be master of Lorimer Felle again.
As the sun set over the Mhorran Valley, Lorimer removed the cloth from his eyes and bathed in the golden glory of a primal landscape. Serene, snow-capped mountains burned red and gold. The sight took his breath away.
His vampiric nature allowed him to go where mere mortals never could, and he exulted in witnessing such sights as no other eye ever had. That came at the price of his humanity. He enjoyed killing, though for a long time he had denied it. Part of him still believed he simply enjoyed a worthy challenge, and that killing for its own sake was beneath him. It was not entirely true, as he did derive great pleasure from exercising power. He was centuries old and, given time, even unpalatable truths become brutally obvious and must be accepted. Some of his kin had been unable to accept what they were, and fighting their nature broke their minds. Inflamed desires led to occasional loss of control, and on to black guilt and despair until they had become twisted monsters plaguing the mountains and forests near Fade’s Reach. Lorimer had hunted most of them down, and after a great battle, devoured them. And he had enjoyed it. He was a monster in many ways, but he could accept that burden in order to protect his people.
He spotted movement on a lower rise overlooking the valley. He ran low and silent, using the contours of the hillside to mask his approach, feet widening to spread his weight across the snow and ice. A small stone and slate shepherd’s hut lay ahead, with a stack of dry wood and peat outside intended to make a signal fire when the enemy was sighted. A fur-cloaked figure was busy removing the waxed canvas from the woodpile, allowing in snow and rain to ruin it.
The wind blew a very distinctive and mouth-watering scent towards him. Human blood. His jaw ached as his teeth grew longer, hunger rising. The figure kept its head down against the wind and re-entered the hut.
Lorimer sped across the snow and drew up outside the door. He shifted back into human form, ebony skin stark against the snow, and politely knocked.
There was no response for a moment, then a young man’s voice came from the other side. “What do you want?”
He cleared his throat as the intoxicating scent of blood filled his nostrils. Saliva flooded his mouth. “It is hardly hospitable to let a man freeze to death in the dark of night on a snowy hillside.”
“Should have thought about that ’fore you climbed up here all uninvited,” the voice said. “Piss off.”
Lorimer smiled. The man’s accent was not local. The young man had the drawl of the hillfolk villages north of Fenoch Ford, one of the first and largest towns to fall to the Lucent Empire ten years before they had dared attack Fade’s Reach.
The hardy hillfolk were said to make for excellent scouts. Which meant this young man had grown up under the Lucent Goddess and was here about her bloody business. He was no friend, merely food.
Lorimer kicked the door in. The man crashed into the back wall in a hail of splintered wreckage and slumped down, dazed and bleeding.
Inside was a cramped room with a single bed, smouldering fire pit and enough space for supplies to last a good few weeks of snowstorm. The bed was currently occupied by a weathered greybeard with his throat freshly cut.
“I believe you have made a terrible mistake this night,” Lorimer said. “Enlighten me, how much does the Lucent Empire pay for your services?”
The man rose to his feet, a rivulet of blood winding down his cheek from a gash on his scalp. He drew a knife from his belt and lunged forward, burying it between Lorimer’s ribs and into his heart.
Lorimer looked down at the mortal wound. Then back up to meet his supposed killer’s gaze. “I do hope that was worth it.” His jaw dropped and fangs erupted, razor-sharp forked tongue lashing out to pluck one of the man’s eyes from his head.
The man shrieked and reeled back.
The eyeball popped pleasingly in Lorimer’s mouth and filled it with the savoury taste of jelly. He drew the dagger from his chest and bent it in two before tossing it at his attacker’s feet.
“When will your army attack?” he demanded. “How many others like you are currently in these hills?”
The man clamped a hand to his empty eye socket and snarled. “Whatever manner of beast you are, you’ll have nothing from me. I go to the Bright One’s bosom!”
“I am positive she will take great pleasure in having the likes of you suckling at her teats,” Lorimer replied. “In any case, you will not be going anywhere for quite a while. I shall eat you one morsel at a time until you tell me everything I wish to know.” He grinned and stepped forward, weathering futile kicks and flailing punches.
He started with an ear, then a finger, savouring the appetisers. Tears of pain rolled down the man’s face but still he denied Lorimer. The vampire grabbed his arm and twisted the hand back to front with a crunch of bone and snap of tendons.
“Come, come, why prolong this?”
His words were met with a blob of phlegm dripping down his face.
“There is no need for rudeness.” He pressed the Lucent scout to the floor with his left hand. Claws erupted from the fingers on his right and trailed down the sobbing man’s chest, shearing through fur and cloth but leaving the skin beneath intact. Then it cut lower, freeing the man’s cock and balls.
Lorimer grinned, forked tongue slowly licking jagged fangs. His claws presse
d harder. A single claw, a delicate slit. A ball came away, soft and sticky in his hand, and he lifted it to his mouth as his prey writhed and screamed in horror. He paused. “Where have my manners gone? You must also be hungry.” And he shoved the testicle into the man’s mouth and clamped a hand over it until he choked it down. The man’s single eye was wide and wild with terror.
“Now you are ready,” the vampire said softly. “Tell me all I need to know, and I will make the rest of it quick.”
The man broke, and as promised the unfortunate scout’s end was quick. Depending on weather, an advance force would arrive in around two or three weeks to secure Tarnbrooke. The man claimed a hundred thousand armoured soldiers and a hundred inquisitors, but Lorimer smelled the lie on him and pressed the issue, painfully. The man was good with a knife but really had no idea how to count beyond ten, twenty if he used his toes. What he was certain of was that the bulk of the army marched with the baggage train, conserving their strength as they trailed a handful of days behind the vanguard.
They had less time than Black Herran had hoped – only three weeks if the Elder Gods were feeling merciful enough to send bad weather to aid them. Lorimer doubted that Tarnbrooke could be made ready in time, but he would do his part until Maeven had what she wanted. Win or lose they would then leave, and he would take what he needed from her or they would both perish in the attempt.
There were other scouts abroad in the snowy hills, hunting for watchers and signal fires in order to blind Tarnbrooke to the Lucent attack. One of them would have more solid information on the enemy force. Lorimer was hungry, and tonight those men were his prey.
CHAPTER 21
The town’s temple had been repurposed to act as the command centre for the Tarnbrooke defence forces. As grand as that sounded, all it meant was that tables had been procured from nearby houses and pushed together to form a square in the centre of the hall, with old maps of the town and surrounding area nailed to them. Small wooden warriors carved for children stood in for real military forces on the map. Pots of water and ale had been set off to one side, since arguing was thirsty work. Most importantly for Black Herran’s purposes, the temple had its own privy. The town elders – herself included – were old and their bladders often proved unreliable.
As for the Elder Gods of Essoran whose statues looked down on them, well, Black Herran considered this their fight too. The Lucent Empire would slaughter all who followed the old ways, and if they proved victorious one of their first acts would be to reduce this temple to rubble. The least the Elder Gods could do was offer up their temple for her use – not that she much cared if they objected.
Black Herran had been up at the crow of dawn, washed, dressed and waiting as those she had ordered to attend arrived in dribs and drabs. Jerak Hyden arrived first with a scroll tucked under one arm, precise and punctual as the mechanical devices he crafted. The dark circles beneath his eyes suggested he had been so immersed in his work that he had forgotten to sleep again. He sat to her right, unfurled his scroll and with a charcoal stick, began amending diagrams, refusing to waste even a single moment of his valuable time on mindless pleasantries and small talk.
Lorimer’s manservant Estevan was close on Jerak’s heels. He doffed his feathered hat, offered her a respectful nod, and took a seat ready to take notes with quill and ink. Amogg and Tiarnach had usurped his role in training the militia, a position he was immensely grateful to be relieved of. It left him far more time to help organise the workers’ tasks, oversee the construction of fortifications, and to make Black Herran’s life easier in a hundred little ways she had no idea she had even needed. She suspected that this humble servant had far more to do with Lorimer’s previous successes as her captain than she, or even Lorimer, ever realised.
Town elders Deem and Cox, beards combed and oiled, and Healy in her sombre grey dress, had arrived together as a united force, determined to protect their town from the evil tyrant in command as much as from the Lucent Empire. They sat to her left, as far away from Jerak Hyden as possible.
Black Herran smiled thinly. “Welcome. Best watch what you say here, elders. Not all are as forgiving as I am.” They ignored her and sat stiff-backed in disapproving silence.
Verena and Maeven arrived next, closely followed by the bulk of Amogg squeezing through the merely human-sized doorway. The elders shivered at the realisation they were trapped indoors with her.
The big orc’s eyes scanned the statues of the human gods. “Weaklings,” she muttered. A sheepish young woman trailed after the orc chieftain.
“Penny?” Black Herran said. “What are you doing here?” She peered behind Amogg’s broad back as the door swung shut. For her part Penny just gazed up at the huge orc with two parts fear and one part admiration.
Cox hissed as he noticed the skirt of Penny’s dress was cut scandalously short to just above the knees, and worse, slit half-way up the side as well. “Cover yourself, girl! That dress is shameful.”
Amogg snarled, making the elders flinch. “Penny wanted fight me. She fight for me now. Make for good warrior. Silly clothes no good to fight in so I make better.”
Cox tutted at Penny. “You have allowed this mindless beast to dress you like a brazen harlot.”
Amogg strode forward and wrapped a hand around the town elder’s throat. She pulled the human to his feet, choking and scrabbling at her iron grip. Her hand clenched and his neck snapped like a wrung chicken.
Penny and the elders screamed as Amogg tossed the corpse into the corner of the room and stared down at the other two elders, a mountain of volcanic rage, her skin flushing angry orcish red. “Weaklings insult Amogg and die. Insult Penny and die.”
Then her skin returned to a calmer green and she shoved a pale-faced, shaking Penny towards the sturdiest bench in the room, which creaked ominously under her bulk of muscle. Penny looked sick from witnessing a murder and from the realisation that orcish ways were brutally different from her own. There would be no escape for her.
The Tarnbrooke residents looked at Black Herran in horror.
“You were warned,” she said. The old Dalia would have been upset, but the even older Black Herran had never liked that self-righteous prick anyway. “Amogg Hadakk is of far more use than a judgemental old idiot who cannot hold his tongue.” She turned to Amogg, “Are your orcish friends not joining us?”
Amogg shrugged. “They not speak human words so good. They happy build bigger walls.”
Black Herran nodded, then glowered at the door. “Lorimer may not be back for some time but have any of you seen Tiarnach?”
Amogg brightened. “Was good fight with burn-hair yesterday. Many human males bled in the dirt. Then many of your ales were drunk. Amogg drink only one horn. Learned lesson at Hive. Head hurt very bad after. Cannot fight hangover.”
Tiarnach chose that moment to stagger into the temple, his eyes bloodshot to match a swollen cheek and crusted nose. He shuddered as he crossed the threshold and refused to look up at the statues of the gods. Bruises bloomed across his neck and hands but were already fading from black and blue to green and yellows with preternatural speed. He noted and dismissed the fresh corpse in the corner like it was a potted plant or a discarded shoe.
“Male bonding” was his only explanation as he slumped into a chair and closed his eyes.
Black Herran scowled and then looked at the map. “We begin now. Lorimer can catch up later. What can you make of our militia?”
Tiarnach cracked an eyelid. “Your best are farmers and wee boys. The whole lot o’ them will break at the first charge. Gimme a few weeks and we can do something with them, at least make a fight of it with those four hundred.”
Amogg snorted. “They not warriors. Soft. Not brave like Penny who would fight me for sake of kin. Human females will fight better. I teach to fight like small orc.”
“Interesting,” Black Herran replied. “I am all in favour of arming any women willing to fight. The more the better. What say you, elders?”
&n
bsp; Deem’s lips tightened and the words were prised out like rotten teeth as he watched Amogg from the corner of his eyes. “If we must.”
Healy looked more fearful and thoughtful as she studied Penny. “If they volunteer then I cannot object, given the circumstances. However, not all are as headstrong as Penny.”
The young woman reddened under their stares.
“Who angers you?” Amogg said. “Kill them.”
“She’s embarrassed, you big green fool,” Lorimer said from the doorway. Dressed in little more than a strip of cloth around his eyes, his loins, and a fresh and dripping bear-hide cloak, his sweat-slick muscles glistened like those of a god.
He tossed a heavy sack across the room. It landed by Black Herran’s feet and four heads rolled free. “You don’t have many weeks left, Tiarnach. You have two. Three at most before their vanguard of three thousand men arrive. Their main force will only be days behind that, and if these men were correct, it is four times the size and contains both cavalry and siege engines.”
Verena glanced at his gifts. “Lucent Empire spies?”
“Indeed. Some of your men set to watch the pass have been slain. The others have now been warned.”
The elders moaned with loss. “Who did they kill?”
Lorimer described the dead, and how they died in graphic detail. Deem slumped in his chair, face buried in his hands to stifle the sobs.
“One of those men was his grandson,” Healy explained.
“See the watchers are replaced,” Black Herran said to the elders. “The enemy are fanatics. There is no bargaining or reasoning with them, and there will be no mercy for any of us if they succeed in taking the town. This is kill or be killed.”
Deem rose, chair scraping across the floor. He staggered to Amogg and grabbed her huge shoulder with one hand, his other a fist pounding her chest. Such was her contempt for him that she did not even bother to defend herself.
The Maleficent Seven Page 19