“Mariana is going to climb into the castle and work her way into the city to the king. From what I’ve heard of King Ufrith, he’s a warrior himself, and unless I miss my guess, she won’t have to look much farther than the walls.” He turned to Mariana. “You have to convince the king to send out a sortie comprised of whatever men he has left that are able to fight. Hopefully, between his army and our…force, we can manage to make it to the necromancer.”
“Sounds like a lot of hoping,” Tesler said, frowning.
“My experience, lad,” Fedder said, “that’s what life is.”
“Right,” Mariana said with a frown, “so any idea of how I’m to convince this King Ufrith to help us instead of getting his men to cut me down?”
“No,” Dannen said. “But you’d better find out a way. If it’s any consolation, should you fail, we won’t be around to complain about it.”
“On account of we’ll be dead,” Fedder offered.
Mariana hissed. “Yeah, I got that, thanks.”
“Just use those feminine charms of yours, lass,” the mage said, grinning, “how could he resist, you bein’ so easygoin’ and all?”
“I’ll go.”
They all turned to look at Tesler, each of them looking incredulous, even the squirrel, who was staring at him as if he’d gone insane.
“What?” Mariana asked.
The man took a slow, deep breath, squaring his shoulders. “I said I’ll go.” He met Mariana’s eyes. “I don’t want you to…I mean, I can’t…”
The woman moved to him, and Dannen thought, at first, that she meant to say some scathing remark, slap him, perhaps. Instead, she grabbed his hands in hers. “Tesler,” she said softly, her voice not unkind, “you’d never make it over the wall. Anyway, I’ll be fine, okay?”
“But you can’t know that,” the man said, “if something happens or—”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Mariana interrupted. “I’ll be fine.” She leaned in then, giving him a kiss on the cheek, and when she pulled back, Tesler was blinking, stunned. “If…when I get back, we need to talk. Alright?”
He swallowed hard. “Alright.”
She nodded then, turning back to Dannen and Fedder, who was grinning madly. “So. When do you want this sortie of yours to come?”
Dannen couldn’t help but admire the woman. She was scared—as any sane person would be—but she was keeping a tight leash on her fear. “As soon as you can. We’ll distract the army; hopefully that will keep them from noticing you, but doing so is going to put us in a bad spot.” He turned to the others. “The rest of us are to do everything we can to keep them distracted and find the necromancer.”
Fedder grunted. “Sounds like a shit plan, Butcher.”
Dannen nodded. “Yeah, it does. You got a better one?”
“Nah,” the mage said grinning, “anyway, it sounds like fun, too.”
Mariana rolled her eyes. “Gods, but you’ve got to get out more.”
“Well,” Dannen said, eyeing each of them, the young man, Tesler, still looked dazed, his eyes on Mariana. “Let’s go tell our new friends.”
Dannen recounted the plan to the trolls who stared on with blank expressions on their faces until he was finished.
Finally, Bumblebelly spoke. “So…” he said, staring down the undead horde in the field below. “We smash?”
Dannen winced, wondering how much—if any—of the plan had sunken into the trolls’ heads. “Yes. We smash. But toward the center, alright? We’ve got to find the necromancer.”
Fiddleguts grinned. “I like smashing.”
We’re screwed, Dannen thought. He turned back to the others and saw the thought echoed on their expressions. “Well,” he said. “We ready?”
“I can’t wait,” Mariana said.
Dannen nodded. “Why don’t you two go get the horses?” he said to her and Tesler, thinking to give the two a couple of minutes. Not much of a gift, maybe, but the best that he could give them, and they both nodded, setting off eagerly.
He was watching them go when Fedder came to stand next to him, his eyes also tracking the two. “Reckon it’ll hurt?” the mage asked.
Dannen turned to look at him. “What’s that?”
“Dying.”
He grunted. “Don’t know—I never tried it.”
The mage blinked at him for a second then burst out in a roaring laughter. “Ah gods, Butcher, I hope you don’t die. I’d miss this.”
“You and me both,” Dannen said. Then, on a whim, he held out his hand. The mage took it in his own massive grip. “I won’t say it’s been a pleasure, Fedder, but it’s been interesting at the least.”
The mage grinned. “It has, hasn’t it? You’re a good man, Butcher.”
A good man. Dannen thought that was a fine thing to hear, perhaps the finest. Oh, he’d been a great man before—at least according to the bards—but he’d never been accused of being a good one. On the whole, he thought he preferred being a good one. “Well,” he said, surprised by the emotion in his voice, “best be getting ready.”
He busied himself checking to make sure his sheath was secure and speaking with Bumblebelly and Fiddleguts. Moments later, Tesler and Mariana arrived leading the horses, both with a slight flush to their cheeks and their lips which told him they’d made good use of the time given them.
Minutes later, they were all mounted, the trolls standing on either side. “Once we’re in,” he said, looking at Mariana, “just pick the best spot along the wall that you can, alright?”
The woman nodded, her jaw tensed in anticipation.
Dannen glanced around at everyone else. “Ready?”
Bumblebelly brandished his great club, a wide grin on his face, as he turned to the other trolls. “Hear that, boys? It’s smashin’ time.”
Fiddleguts, not to be outdone, waved his own club in the air with a hoot. “I love smashin’!”
“Alright then,” Dannen said with a sigh, “let’s get to smashing.”
“Good luck,” Mariana said, but her eyes were locked solely on Tesler, and Dannen and Fedder might as well have not existed. “Be safe.”
“You too,” Tesler said.
Finally, the girl turned to Dannen, and he gave her a nod. Then, with a shout, he gave his horse’s side a kick and he, followed by the closest friends he had and a group of trolls who were decidedly not his friends, charged down the hillside toward the throng of the undead.
***
As they rode all-out down the hillside, the trolls stomping behind them, their long strides easily keeping pace with the horses which were panicked—rightfully so to his mind—Dannen decided that he’d probably made the wrong career choice in his life. Better to have been a banker or a clerk, safer, too. But then, he could have chosen crime boss and still come out far ahead on that one.
They were within a hundred paces of the undead army when suddenly, every skeleton turned, as if controlled by one mind—which of course they were—to regard him and his small army. “Fedder,” Dannen yelled, “make us a hole!”
The mage gave a grim nod and let go of his horse’s reins, displaying a level of horsemanship that frankly Dannen wouldn’t have suspected. He raised both his hands high into the air and fire began to coalesce around them, wreathing them and his arms, growing bigger and bigger, hotter and hotter as Dannen watched until he was forced to squint his eyes and use one of his own hands to shield them from the worst of the light.
Then the mage let out a great, bellowing roar, thrusting his hands forward. Massive, twin gouts of fire shot forward into the enemy ranks and where it struck them, the nearest skeletons disintegrated, falling to the ground in great piles of ash. The two lines of flame surged deep into the enemy lines, cutting a great swash in their ranks, one which Dannen was gratified to see until he realized that even that incredible use of the mage’s magic had only destroyed the smallest fraction of what they faced.
Still, they were committed now and there was nothing to be done, so he t
urned back to the others as he rode. “Into the gap!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mariana wasn’t much for praying. Kind of hard to be when you dedicated your life to the assassins’ arts, but as she watched Tesler and the rest charge down the hill she said a silent prayer anyway, figuring that maybe it wouldn’t help but that it certainly couldn’t hurt.
She watched, stunned by the incredible display of power, as Fedder’s magic scythed into the enemy ranks—so stunned, in fact, that it took her a moment to realize that there wasn’t going to be much of a better distraction than that.
Checking once more to make sure that her rods were secure in their sheaths, she took a deep breath then gave her horse’s flanks a kick, sending it charging toward the wall. There was no way to avoid the undead army, not completely, but she aimed her mount toward the edges of it where the soldiers, such as they were, were the thinnest.
At first, she thought she would reach the wall without incident, for the undead she encountered did not so much as turn in her direction and as she rode past she put her metal rods to use, caving in one skeletal skull after the other. Soon, though, the creatures began to take note of her charge into their ranks. Their sword strikes were awkward, ungainly, no finesse or skill but chopping at her like a woodsman might chop at a tree with an axe, yet what they lacked in skill they more than made up for in numbers.
Numbers which threatened to slow her charge to a standstill and if that happened, Mariana knew she was as good as dead. She lashed out frantically with her weapons, parrying desperately as her horse continued forward, crying out as some of the blades connected in shallow cuts. She saw, as she approached the wall, that more of the undead were clustered at the base, too many to fight her way through.
She continued charging toward the wall, her weapons flashing out until she judged it to be the last possible moment, then she slammed them back into the sheaths at her side and leapt so that her feet were on the horse’s back, holding the reins in a tight grip. Then, when she judged the distance right, she braced herself, squatting as low as she could—then jumped.
Her feet left her mount’s back moments before the horse turned away from the undead waiting with their swords bared, and she was sent hurtling through the air. Had they been mortals, it would have been an easy enough thing for one of the soldiers to swat her out of the air with a sword or an axe, but they were not, and so her flight went unimpeded.
At least, that was, until she struck the hard stone wall. The breath was knocked from her, and she scrabbled desperately for purchase, less than a few feet separating her from the undead clambering below her, eager to put their weapons to use. One of her hands found a gap in the stone, and she hung from that only, her feet and other hand desperately searching for purchase. Finally, she found it, just as her grip threatened to give out.
Hissing, Mariana began to climb, using the small dents and cracks that time and weather inevitably left in the works of men. The stone was cold, almost painful to the touch, and after only minutes of climbing her fingers and knuckles were scraped and bloody. Still, she gritted her teeth and did her best to ignore the pain as she pushed on.
Dannen and the others were counting on her. Tesler was counting on her, and she would not fail. She reached the top of the wall without further incident, and by the time she did her arms and legs felt as if they were on fire. Still, she took her time, glancing first in one direction along the wall, then the other, to see if any of the defenders had marked her progress. It wouldn’t do, after all, to have spent the last several minutes hissing and cursing as she took on such a miserable climb only to be struck down at the end of it by one of the very people she and the others had come to save.
But none seemed to have noticed her, all of the defenders along the wall too focused—understandably—on the undead horde milling at the base of the walls. But Mariana noticed something else, too, as she surveyed the walls. Namely, the low numbers of the defenders. She was an assassin, not a guard commander. She knew little of defending a city, but even she knew that to do it, one generally needed soldiers. She had known, of course, when she and the others had stumbled onto the battlefield, that the king’s army had suffered losses, but nothing could make those losses so apparent as seeing the remnants of that massacre firsthand.
The city’s defenders were stretched thin along the walls, and so it was not so difficult a task to remain unseen as she swung first one leg then the other over the balustrade. She paused for a moment, glancing down into the fields below. High up on the wall, she was treated to a full sight of the devastation caused by Fedder’s magic, and although the man would test a priest’s patience she couldn’t help but be impressed. Impressed and more than a little humbled by the amount of power on display.
The mage’s spell had cut a great, flaming swath through the undead ranks, bringing down countless hundreds of the creatures with one roaring blast. The problem, of course, was that the army numbered in its thousands. Still, it was damned impressive. She narrowed her eyes, staring at the line the mage’s magic had made cutting toward the center of the army, looking for Tesler and the others.
At first, she could not find them and so felt a moment of panic. Had she taken too long in her climb? Had they already been brought down by the teeming hordes? But even as the chilling thought struck her, she caught sight of a great, hulking, red-bearded form in a blue robe that could only be Fedder and who she thought must surely be Dannen and Tesler running beside him.
She breathed a heavy, giddy sigh of relief at that. They were still alive. Thank the gods, they were still alive.
But they won’t be for long, not if you keep fooling around. With one more glance around the battlements, Mariana set off at a sprint in search of the king, hoping that Dannen had been right and that Ufrith would be somewhere along the walls. Hoping, too, that the others didn’t die before she found him.
***
Dannen was about to die. True, he wasn’t the only one—Fedder and Tesler, even the damned squirrel riding on the young man’s shoulder—were equally screwed, but the fact that he’d have company on his journey to the land of the dead was little comfort.
They had made good time toward the army’s center following the effects of Fedder’s spell, and Dannen had dared to hope they might make it to the necromancer after all. But the undead, who initially had appeared stunned and confused by the mage’s blast—or possibly by the fact that their brains had long-since rotted in their skulls—had begun to gather their wits surely enough, moving to intercept Dannen and the others, crowding around them, pushing toward them from every direction. Their progress was also slowed by the loss of their mounts. The horse he’d ridden, as well as those of his companions, was not a war horse and so he and the others had been forced to dismount or risk being thrown and trampled by the panicked mounts, and he had watched with more than a little envy as the beasts turned and fled back toward the relative safety of the forest.
Yet he and the others were left with no other option but to fight on as the undead flung themselves at them without surcease, at the trolls, too, who wielded their giant clubs with, if not skill, then at least an overabundance of strength and eagerness, smashing their skeletal opponents to pieces with great swings of their massive weapons.
Yet, the undead continued to come on, displaying none of the anxiety or hesitation that would have plagued a mortal army when facing down a group of rampaging trolls.
Dannen growled, fighting his way forward, the trolls and Fedder and Tesler alongside him, each of them knowing what would happen if they allowed themselves to be brought to a standstill by the far greater numbers of their opponents. The only reason they were still alive was that their mad, onward rush had not given the undead—who surrounded them on all sides—the opportunity to push forward.
They had not stopped, not yet, but they were slowing as the fatigue of battle began to set in, as the undead began to cluster around them, they—or perhaps their master—sensing Dannen and his companio
ns’ intent.
One of the few good things was that, despite its battered and crude appearance, the sword Perandius had given Dannen was surprisingly sharp and balanced, slicing smoothly through the bones of his undead opponents, easily separating their heads from their shoulders. The trolls were another good thing.
When they’d first rushed into the horde, Dannen had felt certain that one of the creatures would accidentally—or, considering that they were trolls, perhaps not so accidentally—smash him and the others with their clubs. They didn’t though, wielding their weapons to great effect against the foes.
But as powerful, as intimidating, as, frankly, large as the trolls were, they were not immune to the swords and daggers of their opponents. Dannen heard a great bellow off to his left, and he spun to see one troll—whose name he did not know—waving his club madly about him as the undead swarmed over him like ants over a beetle, their weapons rising up and down with a mechanical deadliness.
The troll roared a second time as the combined weight of the creatures clinging to it, as well as the severity of its wounds, made it fall to its knees and, moments later, it vanished beneath an undead tide.
There was no third roar.
The first death, then, but Dannen doubted very much that it would be the last. Dying, he’d found, when it had begun, was a difficult thing to stop. He glanced at the walls and saw that, at least, Mariana had finished climbing up and had disappeared over the edge. At least, he hoped so, as the alternative for her absence was that she had plummeted into the undead below.
He and the others were running out of time, that much he knew, and he could only hope that the woman was faring better than they were.
***
Mariana was not faring well at all. As it turned out, someone had seen her climbing the wall after all, a guard that had been too far away—this, at least, was something to be thankful for—to knock her off. And that guard had told other guards and so, after less than a minute of being on the battlements, she was being pursued by nearly a dozen guardsmen who, despite their weary appearances, were surprisingly fast. What was worse, though, was that some of those guardsmen carried crossbows. Not so effective against the undead—hard to puncture an organ when your target had no organs worth speaking of—but the bolts from which would do a good job of ruining her day.
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