by Rex Jameson
“What do the men who cry out in the night for power call you?”
“Which men?” she asked. “For there are many.”
Ashton sensed that he was in danger, but he found it extremely difficult to stop looking at her and break away. She had a magnetism about her, and not just because of the overt and powerful sexuality that she exuded. There was something very unnatural about her. Even supernatural.
“The durun lords called me Queen,” she said, “and they sought me out. I do appreciate those who call me Queen. I created the naurun and brought forth many of their greatest lords. I’ve created many things, even on this world. I’m a champion of nature. I was the first to look past the Abyss and discover life outside of our shadows.”
“What are the naurun?”
“You might call them demons…”
“Demons?” Ashton asked. “You created demons?”
“Experiments that got out of hand,” she said. “Some of my creations have been quite tame, in comparison. Look, I’m a leap-first kind of lady. If I see something I want to pounce on, I just…”
She let the thought trail as her fingernail scraped through the brown cloth on his shoulder.
“So, demons are real?” Ashton asked, breaking away from her touch.
“Have you not seen them?” she asked. “I’ve been fighting them for ten thousand years in your plane alone. It’s exhausting, really. And to think the humans above the battle think nothing of our toils…”
She exaggerated a sigh and cast him a sultry look. “I could use a leader like you. A new Maddox. Someone who inspires like you do. Someone who wouldn’t be lured into a trap set by demons. Someone with your passion…”
“You want me to fight demons?”
“Is there any other battle worth fighting?” she asked. “Why stay up here and get yourself involved in petty bickering between bloated lords? What happens when the Red Army lies under your boot? Where then will you send your army of undead?”
“Where will I send them?” Ashton asked. “I would release them. Their vengeance would be done. I’d allow them to return to the underworld.”
She stopped groping at him. “How boring…”
“You may have some larger purpose,” he said. “You may be some dark goddess…”
She groaned again and grinned mischievously at him. “I have told you to be careful with your compliments…”
“But I am just a man,” Ashton continued. “If I had some larger purpose, it dies with the Red Army. That’s my purpose now. I’m not this general that you seek.”
“You may have been born a man,” she said, “just as the Prince of Demons was born a lowly naurun. But I raised him up to be something else entirely. Now, demons tremble at his name, and he trembles at mine.”
She laughed luxuriously and richly. “Though, he trembles after me much differently than his hordes do for him.”
“And what name does he tremble to?” Ashton asked.
“Who does he fear, you mean?” she asked.
“Does he fear you? Or adore you?”
She smirked and laughed again. “Perhaps one day you may ask him. See if he knows the difference.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Ashton said.
“Which one?”
“The same one I’ve repeated over and over again.”
“Ask it again.”
He thought he might try flattering her.
“What should I call you, dark goddess?”
She smiled genuinely. “That’ll do.”
“But what does this Prince of Demons call you?”
She gritted her teeth. “For a man who claims he’s just a man, you surely are adept at maneuvering me into corners without giving me what I want. That’s not to say I dislike a good dark corner. I’ve pulled my share of creatures into such places when the desire has struck me. But I can see in your eyes that your corner has no such delightful intents. Fair enough. I’ll answer your question. The naurun who calls himself the Prince of Demons calls me Mekadesh, when he wishes to find me in his bed. It’s a bit of a joke between us.”
“Is that the name you would have me call you?”
“No,” she admitted. She circled him, eyeing him like a fox might watch a hen. “I do not intend to mislead you. I believe I have use for you.”
She was intoxicating, in a way. He wanted to watch her too, but there was a stronger part inside him that told him to resist. No woman had ever talked to him or looked at him like this, and she admitted to having an ulterior motive. Giving in to her simply fed that motive, whatever it was.
“If I am to be of use to you,” he said, “then I will have to know your name.”
Her lip snarled ever so slightly, but her aggravation melted away quickly. Her words began to melt over him like honey once more. “You wish to know my name so that you might call to me?”
She ran her fingers up his chest, and despite his thick cloak and doublet, it felt like her fingernails were on his bare body. He felt goosebumps form across the entirety of his skin, from neck to toe.
His eyes followed her hands as they moved downward, but his mind jolted at the sight of the gore left by his ghouls on the ground behind her. He saw other bodies far away, down the streets. Whatever effect she might have tried to have was weakened by the state of Dona. His eyes wandered.
“I wish only to call to the dead and the damned,” he said. “These are my people.”
“The dead can wait,” she said. “They have all the time in the world.”
He felt their presence. He couldn’t see them, but he felt their pull toward bodies lost between his world and the underworld. Spirits hovering over their corpses.
“They call to me,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, still rubbing on his shirt. He felt frozen in place, despite the pull from down the street toward other ghosts. “And what do they ask for? Who do they call to?”
“You’re still trying to coax me out of my name?”
She sighed, playing with his chest hair through the top of his plain tunic. “You do not have to guard this from me. Your name holds no power over you. You’re only human.”
He felt that she wasn’t lying, but he kept her there looking at him. She hadn’t breathed for a few moments, not that he knew she needed to breathe. All he knew was that her eyes shimmered in anticipation.
“My parents named me Ashton,” he said finally.
Her eyes grew wide and she pulled away from him, smiling triumphantly.
“Jeraldson,” she said. “Yes, yes. I know you.”
“How do you know me?”
“Son of Karl and Margaret. Both are here with me now in the Underworld.”
“My father is dead?”
He said it out of curiosity. There was no initial feeling to it. He had given his father so little thought that the idea that his father might die hadn’t even occurred to him. To Ashton, Karl was almost like a cancer. Karl killed others, like his mother, and then just disappeared while normal people were grieving.
She nodded.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“I told you,” she said, “that I have no intention of misleading you. I tell you the truth.”
“Then how did he die?”
“He was killed by the Red Army,” she said. “Murdered by the man who calls himself The Archer. Stanley Shiloh. You met him once in a forest. Your friend Clayton smashed Stanley’s friends to pieces with a rock. Your friend ate them, in point of fact. The Archer is the instigator of the mob. Your counterpart. A transient nemesis. A no one. Not like you at all. You will be more.”
Ashton remembered the man who had shot Clayton with three arrows in the forest. The Archer and two others had tried to rob him, but he had nothing. Clayton had fought them off single-handed and chased the bowman into the woods.
“Thank you,” he said. “When I think of the Red Army, I’ll remember The Archer. It’ll give me focus. A target for my rage. A target for my people.”
“I’ve given you some useful information, have I not?” she asked. “Perhaps some form of payment is due.”
“I gave you my name,” he said, “and you gained information I had not intended. You told me my name meant nothing to me; that I was only human. Was this not misleading? Have you not already violated whatever contract in truth we had been working under?”
“Perhaps,” she admitted playfully. “I’m not accustomed to being honest.”
She ran her fingers down his chest and lingered at his yarn belt. Through his layers of clothing, he felt her hard nails on his stomach, and she played to this with great effect by pulling on the yarn and moving her fingers slowly along its length from hip to hip. He stirred to her touch.
She giggled.
“I’m here looking for something,” she said. “It was lost to me ages ago, back when my people first started calling me Queen. Soon, I will claim it, for it is mine and within reach. You could do the same. I’m in need of a new general—someone who will help me fight demons. I believe it could be you. When you finish with this vendetta of yours, seek me out.”
“I still do not know your name,” he said again.
“Since you will not voice your desires,” she said, “then giving you a name to call me is… difficult to do. To lessen my disappointment, I’ll think of this as a prelude to a game between you and me. A sort of introductory period. It’s enough for me to know your name, so that I might call on you again.”
She released his belt, but the sensation stayed with him long after she departed. He felt her fingers running along his belt as she waved goodbye at him, and then, without any warning whatsoever, she disappeared. He could still see her naked belly and the dark dress that barely supported her curvy hips and curvaceous body in his mind’s eye.
Someone cleared their throat behind him, and he knew who it was by the tone. He had heard a similar mannerism of disappointment from the man for many years.
“Don’t judge me,” Ashton called to his friend. He fought against his robe to hide the bulge that this mysterious Queen had brought about.
Clayton grunted and waited. Ashton hustled along the path toward his best friend and together they approached another victim of the Red Army. This one was a tanned man with hard callouses on his hands and a deep gash to his abdomen. Ashton felt the man’s presence.
“Vengeance,” he said simply.
Clayton grunted in appreciation beside him, and within seconds, the man had risen to his feet. Clayton pointed toward the direction of the Red Army’s advance, and the nameless man grasped his stomach as he limped along the path out of town. Ashton stepped into the house and found the man’s wife in the living room.
“Vengeance.”
Another enthusiastic volunteer for his large bandit-seeking posse.
Again and again, Ashton visited the houses and streets of Dona, and each time, the recently deceased joined him before walking or even running down the road to Mallory Keep. He stayed there for nearly a full day, and those living who remained hidden and avoided the plague of bandits brought him small bits of cheese, bread, and even jerky.
In the crowd of revelers and well-wishers were several men in religious habits, including a young monk in thick gray wools who hailed him and smiled.
“Godspeed,” the young man said as Ashton mounted a young gray gelding with a simple saddle that wandered the street.
“I don’t think the gods have anything to do with this,” Ashton admitted. “We unfortunate creatures are unfavored by the gods or even the King. Even our lords, who are sworn to watch over us, trample us with their carriages and allow bandits to murder more of us still.”
“The gods are cruel,” the monk replied, “or maybe the world is cruel and the gods fight against it in their own way. Even amongst the clergy of the gods, we do not know their designs. Perhaps you are their creature. Perhaps you are the gods’ necromancer.”
Ashton shook his head.
“Look not to the gods for salvation,” he said. “If they really wanted to stop all of this death and heartache, we’d all be immortal—untouched by disease and blight and impervious to sword.”
“Perhaps that is not in their power,” the monk said. “Perhaps there is no break in the cycle of life and death. All they can do is create someone like yourself and encourage him out into the world and amongst the people. To do right by them.”
“Or perhaps I am simply one of the people,” Ashton said. “Perhaps I draw my power from all of you, to serve you in these small tasks that will surely be forgotten in the annals of time.”
“I assure you this will not be forgotten,” the monk said. “You may be right that the gods may forget us in our time of need. I think not, but it is not my place to know the thoughts of gods or even men. But you? You will be remembered. For as you say, you are one of us. A necromancer of the people. I will write your name in the books of my order, in the Halls of Godun.”
“What is your name, monk?”
“I am called Thomas,” the monk said.
“Well, Thomas,” Ashton said. “As you have promised to remember me, I will remember your name. If we should meet again, I will hail you as Thomas of Godun.”
“I’ll look forward to that,” Thomas said. He bowed his head, crossed his hands over his chest and intoned a simple prayer. “May your journey be eventful and your cause ever righteous.”
Ashton smirked as Clayton walked alongside his new horse. He waved to the crowd of twenty or so survivors.
“Take care of my husband,” a woman called out.
“Make sure my daughter finds her way back to the Underworld!” a man yelled.
“I’ll do what I can,” Ashton said.
As the horse cantered through the streets, Ashton caught sight of another rider in the far tree line. Cloaked in black. A yellow mark on his chest, like the sun breaking the horizon. He paid the rider no mind. He had heard no tale of the dark knight of the woods helping the people of Dona.
“What use is a paladin anyway?” he muttered to the bloody streets and the desolate faces.
17
The Siege Begins
Julian Mallory stood atop the highest battlements of Mallory Keep, looking down, far below, at the men running about in their red sashes. Beside him, a four-squared black-and-white flag of his house snapped in the strong winds. The bandit army had formed a makeshift camp along the main road to the castle, within full view and, likely unbeknownst to the Red Army, in range of the castle’s siege weapons. Julian counted a dozen common supply wagons, stolen from the towns and families the outlaws had pillaged from and murdered.
The Red Army had given the Mallory estate plenty of warning, and the Keep was well stocked. It had been built to withstand an orcish army with ballista and catapults, and this rabble was nothing but men with sticks, bows and torches. The outer walls were twice as tall as those in the capital and more than half as thick.
“I need but fifty men to disperse the lot,” Julian said, “or we could loose arrows and bolts from the ballistae.”
His father grunted.
“We have pigeons from Corinth,” Janus said, “that claim there is another larger army in tow. We wait for their appearance. We don’t know their intent.”
Janus produced a thin piece of white parchment from his robe. Julian was also dressed in nothing but a black-and-white robe, his dark hair flowing down his back. His sister Jayna leaned against his arm, wrapping her own arms around his and bracing against him as the wind whipped around the Mallories.
Julian snatched the paper and read it.
The first army will be at your door in a day. A much larger second army trails behind. We believe they are locals from Perketh, injured but eager.
Julian held the message in front of Jayna. She feigned some interest before burying her head back into his triceps. He handed the missive back to his father, who pocketed it.
Julian leaned against the flagpole on top of the inner wall. He stared down at the killing fi
elds that stretched along the gap between the outer and inner walls. No orcish army had penetrated here in 700 years, and then only because the old keep had been made of wood. After the 50 foot thick and 100 foot tall outer wall had been gifted to them by King Gerald the Builder, Mallory Keep had stood undefeated, despite hundreds of orcish raids and skirmishes with southern lords.
A sergeant rushed through a nearby door, his plate armor clattering noisily.
“What is it, Myers?”
Myers saluted smartly. “A knight has returned from a raiding party we sent out many days ago, Sire.”
“And?” Janus asked.
“He says he saw Frederick Ross die,” the sergeant said. “He said he wishes to make a full account.”
“Later,” Janus said. “Tell him to wait downstairs.”
“Very well, Milord.”
“Shall we go inside for breakfast?” Janus asked, looking to Julian and Jayna as if the news of the death of one of the most famous people in the realm meant nothing.
Julian nodded.
“Myers,” Janus said. “I don’t want any other interruptions until we’re done.”
“Yes, Milord,” Myers said. He bowed curtly and left back through the door and nearby stairs.
Janus briskly walked to the penthouse atop the wall. Julian pulled himself from his sister’s clutches. She groaned in protest, so he rubbed the sides of her arms to warm her before following his father to the parapet door. His father seemed to only think of them as affectionate and his sister as cold-natured. He still did not appear to grasp the truth of Julian and Jayna’s relationship.
The breakfast was normal for the Mallory house, each meal individually prepared by the master chef Jormung, a transplant from Kingarth. Jayna enjoyed poached eggs and a side of pork sausage. Julian had his usual duck breast with scrambled eggs and toast. Their father dined on a rare steak, which was his custom before battles. He claimed there was no better preparation for a bloody day.
As they were finishing their main course, Myers entered the penthouse dining room and bowed to Janus.
“I thought I told you not to interrupt us,” Janus said.