by AC Cobble
Periodically, they would pass a hallway or a room where sounds of fighting and screams of terror bounced along the marble walls and floors. The undead had risen, and they were slowly filling the building like an irresistible tide.
Rew didn’t know if Cinda had instructed the creatures to attack or if there was something inherent in the nature of an animated corpse which caused it to strike out against the living, but it seemed the corpses were acting with single-minded determination to bring down anyone they found who still breathed.
Fighting the things was a futile act. The undead did not require the beat of a heart or the inhale of breath to sustain them. Their brains did not need to function. They could not be killed through normal means. The undead were basic matter, and the souls bound to them were able to manipulate that matter through magic. They could be damaged and broken, but as long as the magic infused them, they would keep coming. Raised by magic, they had to be destroyed by magic.
Or, while not technically destroyed, they could be stopped by other extraordinary means.
They passed one corpse which had been hacked and trampled until it no longer resembled anything that had once been alive. It was a smear of blood and pulped flesh and no longer a threat to those living. Rew wasn’t sure if the soul tied to that body had fled again or if there was simply nothing left to move. He supposed if you chopped the things into small enough pieces, it didn’t really matter.
But while you could hammer the undead hard enough that they were no longer a threat, the problem was that if anyone fell during the fight, they’d rise again and turn on the living. Cinda had unleashed a torrent of magic, and it grew stronger with each new death, feeding upon itself, raising more corpses, who caused more dead. The raging storm of necromancy had whirled beyond her control.
The girl lay limp in her brother’s arms, and Rew offered a hope to the Blessed Mother that she would have strength for what was coming. For now, she was a conduit, channeling the incredible power that was rising as more and more of Calb’s people died, but she was no longer able to direct that power.
Rew felt guilty every time they passed a stricken-looking soldier or member of Calb’s staff. These people were innocents, for the most part. They weren’t responsible for the destruction of Stanton and the tens of thousands of people who died there. They didn’t have a part in Calb’s machinations. No, most of them would be normal folks who’d thought they lucked into a job at the palace. They weren’t mass murderers who—
Stumbling, Rew swallowed. Tens of thousands died in Stanton when Valchon had unleashed his maelstrom, but how many were dying now? How many would die so Rew could strike at the prince? They were no different than…
He let the thought go. He couldn’t think that. Not now. Tomorrow, they would grieve for what they’d done, but in the middle of Calb’s palace there was no time for regret, no time for sorrow.
“Hurry,” he barked to the others, forcing himself to move rather than think. “Come on, we need to hurry.”
He led them down into the bowels of Calb’s palace, ignoring Raif’s complaints about what sort of terrible architect had placed the crypt so far from the mortuary. Rew didn’t bother to explain that it was because the bodies in the mortuary were those of men and women who had family, who had someone who would come looking for them to conduct a burial. Those in the crypt were the forgotten, looked after only by the priests of the Cursed Father.
Rew wondered how mad the king was going to be when he found out what they were doing with all of the bodies he’d been hoarding.
“What are you planning?” asked the nameless woman, her bronze scimitar held in front of her, her gaze darting down each passageway they crossed. “I can seal the door to the crypt, but you do realize what’s going to be coming out of it when we get there, right?”
Rew nodded. “I’m hoping the necromancers can keep them off our backs until we do what we need to.”
“The lass is unconscious, and Ambrose looks like he wants to be. If you’re hoping they’ll face Calb for you, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Let me worry about the prince.”
She eyed him skeptically but fell silent.
After several more turns, Rew skidded to a halt. In front of them, a shuffling column of the undead marched down the hallway. These were not the same as the corpses of the guards they’d seen in the courtyard. These were the long dead. Their flesh, when they still had it, was dried and tattered. Many of them had no flesh at all, just skeletal remains with ancient burial shrouds clinging to them like spiderwebs. Several of them carried weapons.
“That madman!” said Rew, nearly choking on his words. “He armed these things. Blessed Mother, he’s always intended this as an army, and he’s been gathering it for centuries…”
“That army is coming toward us,” mentioned Zaine, stopping beside Rew and the nameless woman.
“The stairwell to the crypt is at the end of this hallway. We, ah, we need to get through here.” Rew turned to Ambrose. “Can you…?”
Pale-faced, his mouth hanging open, the necromancer shook his head. “I might be able to repel a few, but… we need Cinda, Ranger. Only she has the strength to command these things.”
“We won’t waste her strength,” said Rew, shaking his head. “She has to hold the bindings on all of these souls until we finish. Zaine, Anne, carry Cinda between the two of you. Raif, I need you to take my side. We’ll force our way through the crowd. We’ve got to reach the stairwell and fight our way down into the crypt.”
“And why, exactly, do you want to go into the crypt when an entire damned army of undead is walking out of it?” snapped Raif, horror in his eyes.
“Because it’s the only way to sever the bindings the Investiture has tied to us. I don’t have time to explain, but if we don’t do that, the king can find us, and I don’t need to tell you how angry he’ll be when he hears of this. If we mean to see the sunset tonight, we’ve got to make very sure Vaisius Morden has no idea where we are.”
“Oh,” said Raif. He voiced no other arguments, but he didn’t look pleased at the notion.
The big fighter handed his sister to Anne and Zaine then drew his greatsword and took Rew’s side. The nameless woman took his other. The wave of the undead were halfway down the hall, shuffling ever closer.
“Don’t try to kill them. That’s a waste of time, obviously,” ordered Rew, “but make sure we knock them back enough that the others can follow behind. Ambrose, you take the rear and keep them off our backs! Come on, the longer we wait, the more of them there’ll be.”
They weren’t going to get any more ready than they were, so Rew led them forward, and when the first skeletal remains lurched at him, raising a cutlass that was brittle with rust, Rew kicked the corpse in the chest, shattering bone and sending it flying to the side.
The nameless woman raised her left arm and used the bronze bracer encasing her forearm as a battering ram, smashing into the undead, pushing them back. They gnashed their broken teeth at her, and some swung swords, but she beat their strikes aside with her own blade and forced her way down the hall. Dead fingers clawed at her armor, but they found no purchase on the gleaming bronze.
Raif, with little room to maneuver, waited until Rew had hammered several of the macabre creatures back. Then, the big fighter rushed forward and swung a sweeping, horizontal blow that crashed through half a dozen of the undead and sent their bones flying like a child’s game of jacks. The sword and Raif’s targets crackled with vibrant, sickly green bolts of energy. Acrid smoke boiled off the fallen remains, and none of them moved from where they fell.
Everyone paused, mouths agape.
“W-What…” stammered Raif, staring down at the greatsword in his hands.
“Attack again!” bellowed Rew. “The enchantment on your sword, lad! It must have the power to release the souls from their bodies. Lead the way, quickly, and we’ll follow.”
Shrugging his armored shoulders, Raif charged, smashing his w
ay down the hall, battering the undead out of his path, leaving a trail of desiccated flesh, broken bone, and eye-watering smoke.
The undead showed no fear at the boy’s terrific attacks. They kept marching into the path of his greatsword, their own weapons raised, but they were slow and unskilled, and Raif was young and full of fear. It spurred him like wind in a sail, and at a jog, he barreled his way down the hall, his huge greatsword cleaving the masses before him, dead bones cracking beneath his feet. Rew and the nameless woman chased after him, smacking aside any of the creatures Raif missed, clearing the way for Anne and Zaine to drag Cinda between them.
They reached the end of the hallway and found a giant chamber. It was a perfect circle, a domed ceiling capping it, and aside from the hallway they entered, there was only one other door, a yawning archway that led to a stairwell and down toward the crypt. In the room, the press of the undead lessened as the creatures were not forced together to lurch down the hallway.
It gave them a little space to breathe but increased the chances of attack from behind. Rew urged Raif to hurry, and the boy led them toward the stairwell, smashing undead into lifeless piles of bone as he went.
Rew marveled at the way Raif waded through the terrifying creatures and was struck by the simple fact that Raif’s weapon was the Fedgley family’s chief heirloom. For generations, the most powerful necromancers outside of the royal line had been passing down a greatsword that felled the corpses their magic animated. How many members of that line, like Raif, had no talent for necromancy? Were the children of that blood always in opposition, or were they meant to work together? It meant something, but Rew didn’t have time to ponder what.
They fought their way into the archway then started down the stone stairwell beyond it, Raif stooping and chopping at the undead below him.
“Ranger,” he called, “I’m not sure how much longer I can do this. The sword is… tiring me, more than it should.”
“It’s not much longer,” responded Rew, walking the stairs easily behind Raif. “You can hold on.”
They forced their way down the long, broad staircase and then at the bottom found another perfectly circular room, this one smaller than the one above. Like above, there was only one other opening in the circle, a narrow doorway braced by two, tall copper doors. They were flanked by the masked priests of the Cursed Father. They, unlike all other living souls they’d spotted since Cinda began her magic, were standing calmly beside the doors as a host of their charges marched out of the crypt.
Evidently, the undead recognized something of themselves in the priests of the death god and ignored the pair to march out into the palace. The priests’ faces were covered by masks, but Rew could see their eyes turning in curiosity to the newcomers.
“We must go inside,” said the nameless woman, calling loudly above Raif’s exertions against the undead.
“It is forbidden,” intoned one of the priests.
The nameless woman barked a command in a harsh language that Rew did not understand. The priests turned to each other.
“It is forbidden,” the second one repeated.
The nameless woman released another string of commands in the strange language, and the priests kept eyeing each other. Then, as one, they drew long, curved daggers from beneath their vestments and plunged the blades into their stomachs. They wrenched the steel to the side, spilling their guts. Wordlessly, they collapsed. Unlike the other corpses in the palace, they did not rise again.
“Blessed Mother, what did you tell them?” asked Zaine.
“I told them that they’d failed, that these souls had been bound by another and were no longer in the domain of the Cursed Father,” the woman responded. She punched a skeleton that had stumbled close to her. “There’s only one punishment for failure within the Cursed Father’s priesthood.”
“The corpses weren’t attacking them,” murmured Zaine, glancing at the bodies of the priests. “They’re not moving like the soldiers did when they died.”
“They still harbor in the Father’s grace,” explained the nameless woman.
“Grace?” choked Anne.
The nameless woman shrugged. “They’re not rising again, are they?”
“How come these things are attacking you, then?” questioned Anne. “Aren’t you supposed to be a follower of the Cursed Father?”
Cinda stumbled, and Anne and Zaine struggled to hold her upright. The nameless woman’s lips twisted into a sour grimace, but she did not respond to Anne’s comment.
Rew stared at her then shook himself as a corpse teetered toward him. He grabbed it and flung it aside. He pointed to the two copper doors. “In there.”
The nameless woman darted ahead, and while unable to kill the undead, she could knock them down or push them aside. She set to it with a fervor, as if to lose herself in the fight and forget Anne’s observation about the corpses ignoring the priests.
Raif joined her, and together, they cleared the doorway of the undead.
“What’s the plan?” demanded Anne, staggering beneath the weight of Cinda’s limp body.
“I think I know how to sever the king’s connection to me and break the tug of the Investiture. Ancient magic. A soul for a soul.”
“What?”
They stumbled into the antechamber of the crypt, finding a huge copper altar in the center of a bare, stone room. The walls were studded with hollow openings that led down and away. Only the antechamber was lit, and into that light, filed legions of the dead.
“There!” called Rew, pointing to a niche in the wall that did not open to a tunnel and the burial chambers. “We make a stand there.”
Raif fought through a crowd of the undead, and they reached the wall and spun. Ambrose, finally proving some worth, knelt in front of them and whispered, “I’ll hold as long as I can.”
Rew stood over the necromancer, looking around the room. “But the copper? Your spells won’t work in here, will they? I, ah, I’d hoped—“
Ambrose grunted, waving a hand dismissively and interrupting Rew. “I can’t cast through the barrier, but the power of death is vibrant inside of the crypt. I can use it. You’re right, Calb will be as helpless as a babe in here. That’s your plan, isn’t it? He won’t have the benefit of his magic, but for us, it’s like a dam that Cinda pulled down. I-I don’t know how she did it. She shouldn’t have been able to reach inside of this place.”
“Does that mean—“
Ambrose hissed, cutting Rew off. “I need to concentrate.”
Rew looked at the back of the man’s bald head and fell silent. The undead stumbled closer, but two paces away, paused and moved on. The necromancer had erected some sort of invisible barrier that shielded them from attack. Already, Rew could see beads of sweat forming on the Ambrose’s smooth skin. Rew guessed Ambrose wouldn’t be able to hold the protection for long and that it would be best to let the man focus on his work.
“Rew,” said Anne, propping Cinda in a seated position against the wall, “what did you mean, a soul for a soul?”
“I think that’s how her father freed her,” said Rew, nodding toward the nameless woman. “At least, it gave me the idea. He sacrificed himself to loosen the king’s binding on her. I think it will work for me as well.”
“You think?”
Rew shrugged.
Raif leaned heavily on his greatsword. Drawing ragged, gasping breaths, he rasped, “Ranger, who is it you’re planning to sacrifice?”
Zaine pointed at Ambrose’s back and shrugged silently. At their expressions, she asked, “What? Who were you thinking?”
Rew shook his head. “It’s not so simple. A soul for a soul, but not all souls are equal. The king’s connection to my soul is strong. It will take an equally strong connection to break it. I’m going to use Calb.”
“How does that work? Are you going to cut his heart out or something on the altar?” wondered Zaine, looking torn between discomfort and interest in the idea.
Between them and the altar, a
handful of undead milled about, as if eager to fall upon them but unable to pass through the magical barrier Ambrose had erected.
Rew shook his head. “No. This is ancient magic, natural magic. It’s the only thing that can counteract the pull of the Investiture. There’s no ritual, no proscribed series of actions to enlist it. It’s about seizing power and bending it to your will. There will be a surge of that old power when the sacrifice is made, and I think I’ll be able to use it. I hope I’ll be able to.”
“That’s a lot of think, Ranger.”
“You have a better idea?” asked Rew, gesturing at a particularly tall skeleton wielding a spear that was looming over Ambrose, as if waiting for the man to fail, so it could plunge its weapon through the offending necromancer’s bald head.
“How are we going to draw Prince Calb here?” wondered Anne.
“If he wants to face me, he’ll come,” said Rew, “and if he doesn’t, then we don’t stop Cinda, and we’re going to find out how many more of these skeletons the king has accumulated over the last two hundred years. There’s no way to stop these things unless Calb comes for Cinda.”
“The longer this goes on…” warned Anne.
“I know,” responded Rew, a surge of sorrow filling him. “I… Maybe we shouldn’t have done this, but we did. It’s too late to turn from it now.”
Anne stared at him, and Rew looked away. He could feel her gaze, like a dagger, pressing against his flesh. How much of a connection to the people in the palace did Anne have? What could she feel of the madness happening in its marble halls?
Rew blinked and then smiled.
“You hear that, Calb?” he called loudly. “Come and face me, or these damned things are going to keep marching on you until there’s nothing left of Jabaan but the undead. It’s only a matter of time then, until one of our brothers finds you and ends it. You’ll be finished. Your only hope is to face me and to salvage what little you can of your strength. You see me. There’s no trap here. We’re injured and alone. Come and let’s end this.”
“Who are you talking to?” whispered Zaine.