“Come on, slow down,” he said. “You’re just prolonging things, here.”
The wretch let out another wail, this one filled with what Allen thought was desperation.
“What are you going to do, find another leg somewhere? Crawling away to the limb market, are we?” For some reason the thought made him snicker. He started to laugh, the weakness in his own legs making him slip in the uncertain footing. He passed the sword, and bent down to pick it up. “How do you crawl so bloody fast?”
The freak turned its head back in his direction, eyes blazing with misty red light. It turned away again, and crawled with more vigor. Allen sighed and sped up.
“Do you think you can get away, or are you just trying to make me angry?”
It hissed something over its shoulder and continued to claw its way along the ground. Allen caught up to it, flipped the sword in his hand, and slammed it through the creature’s back, pinning it to the dirt. It howled in pain and tried to pull itself from the blade, but Allen dropped his knees onto its shoulders and sat on its back.
“There you are,” he said. “Now we can talk like civilized men.”
The brute pushed against his weight, but the attempt was weak. Rain poured into Allen’s wounds, making them sting. He reached up to prod at his face, and grimaced as he felt the extent of the damage. It hurt to grimace.
“You owe me a new face,” he said. “Since yours is even uglier than mine, I’ll have to take this as recompense.”
He jammed the knife into the fiend’s head, piercing the skull. It screamed in pain, but the blow didn’t kill it. Allen sighed and pulled the dagger free, then rammed it home again. When that didn’t work, he repeated the process and got similar results. He wrenched it free for the third time and started to laugh.
“The gods love me today. I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way. Do you mind? I don’t mind.”
With that, Allen leaned forward and pressed its mishappen face into the grass. It screamed against the wet ground and struggled to rise, but the effort was insufficient to do more than irritate Allen. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his face, he began to saw at the monster’s neck like he was carving a side of mutton. It struggled with renewed vigor to rise, shrieking into the storm, but Allen’s weight was enough to keep it down.
When it was over, the body melted into grayish salt, leaving Allen alone in the rain.
He sat for a few moments, staring at the spot where the thing had disappeared. His body didn’t want to move. Rain flowed down his face, washing his blood into the dirt. Allen let out a long sigh and got to his feet, trying to ignore the pain that wracked most of his body. He gathered up his short sword and saber, wiping them clean in the grass.
Barely able to stand, he set off in search of D’Jenn.
***
Shawna took the head from the corpse of a young woman, slipping aside from its grasp and dancing away from it. She maneuvered to keep the falling body between her and the creatures behind it, which tangled their legs as they came for her. One of them fell to the ground in a pawing mass of grayish limbs, another stumbled but kept coming, legs pumping it toward her with wild abandon. Shawna feinted to the side, then quick-stepped the other way, swiping at the revenant’s neck as it tried changing directions. Her sword bit deep into its neck, but not deep enough. It got a hand on her arm, but the rain made its clammy skin slide from her own, and Shawna was able to tear away from its grip. She stabbed one of her blades into its skull, letting it fall into a motionless heap.
When she turned back to kill the last one, she almost dropped her swords in surprise.
A man stood over the body, a thin-bladed longsword in his hands. He’d stabbed the revenant through the skull, and stood regarding her with a blank expression. He was a wiry fellow, with skin as pale as the snows in Cambrell. A dark leather vest clung to his body, though a rent had been burnt through it. Other than that, the man wore nothing but leather pants and hobnailed boots.
There were scars cut into his neck, some eldritch design that looked close to the tattoos Dormael had on his arms. The scars also cradled the contours of his face, though nothing marred his features themselves. More scarring decorated his head, which was completely devoid of hair. Even his eyebrows were as bare as cave slugs.
“You fight well,” he said. His voice was quiet, even pleasant. It was the sort of voice that might have been well suited to singing. “I’ve known for quite a while, of course, but it was a rare treat to see it in action.”
“Who are you?” she asked. It was apparent this man was her enemy, but something about him gave Shawna pause. Perhaps it was his eyes. They were a pale brown, as if they had once been a rich, deep color, and now were only ghosts of the original hue.
“I am no one,” he said, pulling his sword from the back of the cadaver’s skull. He flicked it to the side and let the rain help wash the gore from the blade. Shawna noticed the color of the steel for the first time, and raised her eyebrows.
“That’s Hassani steel,” she said. “What sword is that? There are only so many in Eldath. I’ve never seen one.”
“It doesn’t have a name,” he replied. He put the blade over the back of his forearm and held the sword out to her, coming forward with a cautious step. “Have a look, if you like.”
“You’re here to kill me.”
He stopped. “I’m here to fight you. The end result has yet to be decided. We don’t have to start right now.”
Shawna looked around the field. The booming noises that hovered around Dormael’s fight with the vilth echoed through storm, but Shawna could barely tell what was happening between them. Stones hurtling through the air and fire blossoming from nothing was more than she could deal with, though. She looked for Allen and D’Jenn, but could see neither one.
Besides, she had no idea whether or not this man would kill her if she simply tried to get away. She wasn’t particularly interested in small talk, but what could she do? None of the corpses were coming in her direction, so she put one of her blades in its scabbard. The other she held out to the strange man.
“An examination, then?” she said. “A parley before the contest.”
“As you wish.” A smile flashed over his face for the briefest of moments, there and gone like summer lightning. As he stepped forward, she noticed the Marks of the Isles on his wrists. They were scars, though, where her own Marks were tattooed. They traded weapons, both moving with the sort of motions one might use around wild animals. Once they had switched swords, they both stepped back out of range.
Shawna took the blade in her hands, and held it up. It was an unconventional design, though Shawna could see its inherent strengths. Hassani steel was stronger than other blades, and could take more punishment without bending or shattering. The narrow blade would make it lighter, and ideal for thrusting between plates of armor.
“Is it true what they say?” Shawna asked.
“Which part of it?”
“That these never go dull,” Shawna said. “That you never have to oil them, never worry about rust.”
“You have to sharpen it,” the man replied, a snicker in his voice. “Though the man who gave me this one told me that it wouldn’t rust, and it had no need for oil.”
“Have you tested that?”
“Gods, no,” the man laughed, that smile flashing across his face again. “It goes against everything I was taught. I just can’t bring myself not to oil it.”
Shawna laughed despite the awkward situation, her memories of her own master’s constant refrains about sword maintenance coming to mind. She imagined that this one’s teacher had probably beaten the same things into his head. Who had that been, though? The Kerallians hadn’t branded people for years.
“My master would have beaten me senseless to see how I treat mine,” Shawna said. “Though they have need for little at all.”
“Sorcery?” the man asked, hefting her sword and looking over it. “These are quite beautiful. I enjoy simplicity.”
>
“I see that,” she replied. His own blade was completely unadorned save for the Rashardian sunburst on its pommel. “And yes—sorcery. Forged at the Mage Tower in Lesmira. My father’s gift to me for earning the Mark.”
“Ah,” the man nodded. His eyes tracked to where Dormael was fighting with the vilth, his expression opaque. “Would that we all had fathers like yours.”
Shawna felt a momentary flash of anger.
“And what did you have to do with his death?” she asked. “You’re here for a reason.”
“None of this was my doing,” the man replied. “I am a pawn in this just as much as you.”
“I am no pawn,” Shawna said, flipping his sword across her forearm and offering it back to him. “The gods may have kicked me in the teeth, but I am no one’s plaything, no victim of circumstance. When I get kicked, I kick back.”
She could tell her words stung him, but she couldn’t say why. He flipped her sword over to echo her gesture, and they traded back. After they switched swords again, they retreated back out of range. Shawna watched him for any sudden movements, but he seemed reluctant to begin. Finally he nodded to himself, and spun the hilt of his sword up to his forehead, blade pointed to the sky.
“I am Maarkov,” he said. “Son of no one, from nowhere. My Mark is ninety-four years old.”
Had she misheard him? A moment of fear suffused her limbs, but she pushed it down. Last year she would have balked at hearing such a thing, but since her time with Dormael and D’Jenn, sorcery and all that came with it had become more commonplace. Shawna pulled her second blade from its scabbard, and brought them both to her forehead.
I won’t even live to be ninety-four, even if he doesn’t kill me in the first few moments.
“I am Baroness Shawna Llewan, daughter of Dolland Llewan, from the kingdom of Cambrell. My Mark is two years old.”
“Die with honor, Shawna Llewan.”
“Die with honor, Maarkov from nowhere.”
Maarkov slid into a high guard, and Shawna raised her swords to answer. They eyed each other through the rain, and Shawna tried to center herself. She pushed her doubts down into her chest, and tried not to think about their disparity in skill.
Maarkov moved forward, and their blades came together in a dance of lethal steel.
***
D’Jenn laid about with his magic, stretching his strength to its limits.
The axe whirled through the air, sinking itself into a skull before ripping free again to whip in another direction. The mace did the same, leaving ruined heads in its wake as it bashed through the group of ravening corpses. D’Jenn maintained a shield with a piece of his consciousness, trying to keep it moving with his body so that he didn’t get pinned to one spot. He flung the weapons around him in a wild pattern of attack, directing them like they were attached with strings to his hands.
Revenants went down all around him, but there were so many of them that he couldn’t tell if he was making headway. They came running toward him, slamming into his shield in their mad attempts to end his life. D’Jenn cursed as the force they added against the shield increased, draining his strength even more. His one advantage was that the rain had kept up, and the grass underfoot was slick. The carcasses came after him with every bit of their ability, heedless of things like uncertain footing. D’Jenn attacked with waves of force here and there, taking the creatures from their feet, but each successive use of that spell brought him closer to drawing too much of his power.
Every moment that he wasn’t killing them, the cadavers piled against his shield. His avenues of escape narrowed, and D’Jenn could see no one in the distance that might help. He was alone, and quickly flagging.
Sharp pains began to throb inside his skull, and he could taste the beginnings of a nosebleed in the back of his throat. Cursing, D’Jenn whipped the pair of weapons back and forth through the pile of struggling bodies, but it wasn’t working fast enough. More of the things piled up on the other side of his shield. When he tried to step backwards, moving the shield with him, the combined weight of the bodies against its barrier drained even more of his magic, and he abandoned the attempt. In moments, he was completely surrounded.
He brought the weapons into the shield with him, and let those threads of magic wink out. He dedicated all his strength to holding the walls of his shield together, even as more corpses pressed against it. A few of them began pounding against the invisible barrier, the sounds of the impact echoing through the ether to D’Jenn’s magical senses.
What now, you gods-damned fool?
He’d gone and allowed himself to get pinned down. D’Jenn had a moment to reflect on how close to dying he’d been on several occasions since they’d left Ishamael. If he survived being struck by lightning, flung from the highest tower of the Conclave, and exposure to the Widow Berry poison, only to be ripped apart by an army of mindless dead things, he could believe Indalvian’s words about the capriciousness of the gods.
Think!
More bodies pushed against the barrier, putting an even greater demand on D’Jenn’s power. He thought about burning them, but the rain would put out any natural fire, which would mean that D’Jenn would need to pump more power into the spell in order to keep the flames burning. Freezing things required a good deal of energy to start with. Even moving things as small as the mace and axe had become difficult, so what was he to do?
D’Jenn reached out with a tendril of magic and snapped the neck of one of the closest revenant, ending its fight. It was quickly stomped into the mud by its friends, forgotten as they tried to get through his shield. A wall of struggling faces pressed in around him, milky eyes locked to him with unblinking stares.
Do they actually use their eyes?
They must, after all. The creatures could clearly identify their targets. Every one of them was staring at him with their expressionless faces. They appeared to be mindless, but they had to have enough intelligence to differentiate between their intended victims, and to execute basic tasks. D’Jenn doubted the vilth could control these things directly while he was performing other demanding functions—such as fighting with Dormael. There were simply too many of them.
Closing his eyes, he pushed out with his senses. He delved into the vivified bodies, trying to determine what magics powered them. Living things always returned a bright sensation to a wizard’s Kai, like beings made of light. These things were dead meat, just bags of rotting flesh with no life to them.
Something else had been put inside them, though, something oily and black. It was entwined with their bones, infused in their brains. It pumped along magical conduits to the arms and legs, though none of the organs were colonized by it. D’Jenn tried to study its form, to get some sense of how it was constructed, but it was like nothing he’d seen before. It lived inside the bodies, but wasn’t connected to any magical source that D’Jenn could determine.
Useless. No bloody time!
How intelligent were these things? Could they be fooled by an illusion, or would they even be distracted by it? There was only one way to find out.
D’Jenn split his consciousness again, ignoring the pain that cut through the soft bits inside his skull. He created the illusion of darkness within his shield, plunging the insides into complete shadow—at least, it would be to anyone looking on. The closest of the revenants ceased their struggling, though the ones in the rear continued to fight their way forward.
Alright, that’s a start.
Next, with a little more power, he created the illusion of himself outside, changing the appearance of one of the corpses to look like him. He was startled at the result. Every one of the enlivened bodies surrounding the one D’Jenn had spelled immediately turned on it. Limbs thrashed as it was taken to the ground and ripped apart. When the rest of them rose from their grisly work, all that was left was a pile of gory mud and twisted limbs.
A moment passed as they all paused, looking around for someone new to pulverize. A few on the outskirts of the mass
caught sight of someone in the distance and took off at a dead run, but not all of them. At least ten of them stayed in place, eyes glancing around in quick little jerks.
Ten was too many for him to fight, especially with his magic as drained as it was. An idea sparked to life, but D’Jenn wasn’t sure if he could pull it off. He was barely confident the plan would work at all.
Clenching his teeth, he took up the axe and the mace. He prepared the illusion in his mind, and took a few deep breaths. There wasn’t enough magic left in him to maintain the shield and work the spells needed at the same time, so he would have to drop it. He felt as if he were about to jump into a pit full of snakes.
No use waiting around, you’re not getting any stronger.
With another magical effort, he repeated the illusion trick, painting one of the standing carcasses in his own image. The others turned on it just as he hoped they would, and a vicious struggle ensued. Clenching his teeth against the pain in his head, D’Jenn abandoned the shield and sprang into motion.
He dropped one of the corpses while its back was to him, braining it with his mace. Another with the axe in the same fashion, though he was holding it in his off-hand, and the attack was clumsy. The two of them went down on the edges of the fray, bodies suddenly limp. D’Jenn swiped another in the side of the head, caving in its skull with a meaty crunch.
One of the creatures on the opposite end of the struggling mass saw him, and abandoned its attack on its fallen comrade. D’Jenn cursed and let go of the illusion, casting it instead at the one whose eyes were currently locked to him. It pawed forward, trying to bowl through the press in its attempt to reach D’Jenn, but the others saw it before it could get very far. They pulled it to the ground and started beating it into the mud.
D’Jenn moved forward to kill another, but as he did, a straggler caught sight of him. He barely saw it charging forward in time to swing a clumsy attack at its head with the mace, but it was a back-handed attempt, and glanced from the cadaver’s skull. Its legs dug furrows in the hill as it tried to change directions and come at him again. D’Jenn felt the illusion unravel as his concentration was broken.
The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection Page 119