by Bruce Blake
“Magic,” he muttered and made his way into the brush and deeper into enemy territory.
Chapter Three
Lehgan stared at Emeline sitting in the rocker. Her body ached to fidget under his gaze, but she didn’t let it; she didn’t even rock the chair to calm Iana wriggling in her arms.
“I don’t understand,” he said finally. “Winter is nearly upon us. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know it’s hard to understand, but we must do this.”
“Ridiculous.” He stood suddenly, his voice rising with the movement, and Emeline cowered against the back of the chair. Lehgan had never struck her, but she knew his temper could be fierce. “You want to risk our lives because of something you were told by a….a ghost?”
“She… it… I know it’s hard to understand but-”
“Hard to understand? Do you jest? You say a ghost visited our home, begged for your help. It’s not hard to understand, it’s unbelievable.”
“Lehgan, we have to-”
“We have to nothing,” he barked and clapped his hands together making Iana jump in Emeline’s arms. “We are staying here.”
Emeline rose from the rocking chair, her face set in a firm expression, her teeth clenched. She stared directly into her husband’s eyes without wavering.
“I am going to the Isthmus Fortress. My daughter is coming with me. Will you come and protect your family or stay here to keep the chickens fed and an empty house warm?”
Anger smoldered in his eyes and the muscles in his jaw flexed and released, flexed and released as he debated the issue with himself, but he must have recognized her determination because he kept his displeasure from passing his lips and perhaps saying words he’d later regret. A surge of love tingled her limbs but her expression remained firm.
“If you must go, I’ll go with you,” he said between clenched teeth. “But I don’t like it.”
Emeline crossed the floor to her husband, gazed up into his eyes and allowed her expression to show some of the appreciation and love she felt. It was a ridiculous request, it didn’t make any sense. She hardly believed she’d found the nerve to ask it of him, but as ridiculous as it seemed, she knew they had to go. She laid her free hand on his chest as she bounced their baby in the other arm.
“He’s your brother. He needs our help.”
“Hmph.”
Khirro and Lehgan had never been close, so perhaps it wasn’t the best way to convince him.
“We owe him, Lehgan, after what we did.”
“We did what we had to.”
“Yes, we did. But at his expense.”
He turned away and her hand fell back to her side. Lehgan went to the mantle, gazed into the fire. Even looking at his back, she saw the struggle going on inside him at her request.
“I don’t do this for him,” he said after a pause. “I do it for you.”
She wanted to go to him again, to show her gratitude with her touch, but stopped herself, knowing he would pull away. In a while he would return to himself, once his begrudging nature subsided. She would settle for words for the moment.
“Thank you, Lehgan. You are a good husband.”
He continued staring into the flames.
***
Iana looked up at her mother, the sling holding her against Emeline’s bosom covering all but her eyes and nose. Carrying the baby against her chest would help keep both of them warm during their ride to the fortress. Lehgan said it would take fourteen days’ ride, perhaps more, and they had spent a day and a half readying food and other necessary supplies, making arrangements on the farm. He led the way on the big bay he used for hunting, the pack mule tethered to his saddle; Emeline rode a few paces behind on the palomino she favored.
Bouncing gently in the saddle with Iana nestled against her, she looked back at their home. A curl of smoke snaked out of the chimney and her mother stood in the doorway watching them leave, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Against her better judgment and contrary to her husband’s wishes, Emeline’s mother had reluctantly agreed to tend the house in their absence, although her daughter failed to give a reason good enough to explain their leaving. Emeline raised a hand and waved good-bye. Her mother returned the gesture without smiling and disappeared into the house, shutting the door behind her before ten paces of earth passed beneath the horses’ hooves.
Emeline settled into the saddle for the long ride ahead while Iana cooed and blew bubbles, soothed by the gait of the horse. Emeline looked down at her and smiled, but the baby made her think of Khirro and the reason behind their trek to the Isthmus Fortress and her smile faded. All these past months, she’d given little thought to Khirro and what had come to pass. Justifying what they’d done had become easier once the conscriptors took him, and easier for her to argue to herself the importance of a child having both her parents, but what would she say when they stood face-to-face? Their actions resulted in Khirro being sent off to war and, according to the ghostly woman, much more. How could she explain that away and make things right?
The mare she rode snorted and shook its head. Emeline looked up from her thoughts at her husband’s back. She didn’t need to wonder how he felt about the whole affair; he and Khirro had never gotten along. In fact, she sometimes found herself wondering if Lehgan might have orchestrated everything-their relationship, Iana, Khirro’s banishment-simply to get his brother out of his life.
No, he’s not like that.
Lehgan had barely said a word since agreeing to her request, choosing instead to answer her enquiries with grunts and gestures. She understood why he acted this way, understood his reticence at undertaking a trip he didn’t understand, but hoped he’d come out of it soon. She needed him. The idea of facing this alone, admitting the truth she’d tried so hard to avoid, felt overwhelming. She role-played scenarios in her head, envisioning what Khirro’s face would look like when she told him what he may already suspect. She imagined how it would make him feel, how it would make her feel. She didn’t want to hurt him, had never really wanted to.
Emeline shook her head and glanced away from her husband and toward the line of stubby trees bordering their farmland. Beyond it, about four hours ride, lay the town. An hour more and she’d be the farthest away from home she’d ever been. The thought brought a shiver to her spine and the movement made Iana gurgle in her arms. She tried to smile at the baby and found she couldn’t.
If I really didn’t want to hurt Khirro, things would be very different now.
She sighed deeply and urged the mare forward to catch up to her husband.
Chapter Four
The trees gave way to scrub brush, the brush to rocky flatland and the flatland finally to farms. They kept off the single-lane dirt track cutting through the area, instead choosing to pick their way through the fields, though the going was slower.
They spoke little while they walked, which gave Khirro time to contemplate the farmland through which they passed, and it quickly became clear to him that something wasn’t right. While some of the fields were cleared and ready for winter, the crops had withered without being harvested in others. Brown leaves and cracked corn stocks carpeted one field while rotted squash and overgrown potato plants turned another into a tangled maze. They didn’t speak of this anomaly; so far, they’d come in contact with no one to question their presence, so remaining quiet seemed their best option to keep it that way.
They hadn’t seen anyone at all until they came to the field of spoiled tomatoes.
The leaves of the tomato plants were dry and brittle, first parched by the sun, then burnt by the cold. A few shrunken tomatoes still clung to the dead vines, but most had fallen to the weed-covered ground. Athryn walked two paces ahead of Khirro, picking his way through the split and desiccated fruit, when he stopped short. Khirro halted beside him and moved his face close to the magician’s ear.
“What is it?” he whispered.
Athryn raised his hand and pointed to a spot ahead of them. Khirro looked b
ut saw nothing unusual at first, just the same twist of dead tomato vines, the same untended soil. He squinted, held his hand to his brow to block sun that wasn’t actually shining in his eyes, and still couldn’t see what caught the magician’s attention. He silently debated whether to ask Athryn what it was and break the silence or trust the magician’s eyes when he spied a swatch of color amongst the brown plants, a dull green that blended into its surroundings.
Khirro stepped forward, felt a hard shape under his foot, and looked down to see he’d trod upon one of the rotten tomatoes. It flexed under his weight, then burst, spilling only dried seeds onto the moist field. He looked at it for a minute and shivered. What happened here to keep the farmer from tending his fields? What man of the earth could bear to allow a crop to spoil so?
He looked away from the dead fruit and took another step. As he got closer, he saw that the patch of green was larger than he first thought. Another step and he recognized it as an abandoned coat. Whoever left it did so before the tomato plants withered-the coat didn’t sit atop the dead vines, they very nearly covered it.
“It’s okay,” he said and strode forward. He hadn’t noticed the magician moving, but he’d come to his side.
“Be careful, Khirro.”
“It’s nothing, just a tunic. It’s-”
Khirro stopped mid-step. Beneath the dull green coat, he saw cloth of another color, a rough-spun brown fabric lost in the tangle of tomato plants until they got closer: breeches to go with the coat.
“Athryn-”
“I see.”
They strode the last five paces together to look down at the corpse. The flesh of the man’s face resembled the dried skin of the tomatoes still clinging to the vine wound around his arm. The bone of his cheek showed through the ashen skin pulled tight across it, his lips were shrunken back from yellowed teeth as empty eye sockets stared skyward, their contents stolen by hungry deathbirds. The body made Khirro think of the scarecrows his father used on their farm to keep the crows from stealing the harvest, though this one had failed miserably at its job.
Athryn knelt beside the dead man, examining him without touching. Khirro stood beside his companion, staring down at the body and suppressing a shudder; he’d seen dead men wielding weapons and so didn’t trust corpses to stay dead.
“Be careful, Athryn.”
Khirro leaned forward, inspecting the corpse over the magician’s shoulder, and noticed a hole the size of the palm of his hand in the dead man’s chest. He presumed the wound to be the cause of the man’s death, but it was an unusual wound, not caused by sword or axe or spear.
What could make a hole that size?
Athryn closed his eyes and held his flattened hand over the dead man’s head, a quiet hum coming from the back of the magician’s throat; Khirro at first mistook it for the buzz of an insect. He didn’t know what his companion attempted; he’d long before given up trying to divine the machinations of a magician, so he skirted the corpse’s feet and crouched at the other side of the body, across from Athryn.
Other than the hole in his chest, everything seemed normal about the man. Average height and build; brown hair, stringy from exposure to the elements; his fingernails grown too long after death. Nor did anything look unnatural about his position-he lay upon the ground as though he’d stopped for a nap while picking tomatoes and his flesh dried onto his bones before he woke. The similarities between the undead soldiers and this inanimate corpse were few, but enough to unnerve Khirro.
The corpse’s chest moved.
Khirro stared at the hole, his breath held for fear the corpse might steal it. When it didn’t move again for a few seconds, he glanced up at Athryn, but his companion showed no sign of having seen the movement.
My imagination.
He released his breath slowly, allowing it to hiss between his teeth.
Stay calm. It’s a corpse, nothing more.
The man’s chest moved again, but it didn’t rise and fall as though the corpse drew breath, instead it gyrated, like a wave cresting beneath the brittle skin. Khirro remembered the way the glowing worms had looked crawling beneath Callan’s flesh and his eyes widened; he opened his mouth to tell Athryn.
“Screee.”
The rat burst out of the hole in the man’s chest, teeth bared as it voiced its displeasure at their presence. Startled, Khirro fell back and felt another dehydrated tomato explode under his back side. The rat, halfway emerged from the man’s chest, screeched at him again. Khirro scuttled away, heart pounding against his ribs, and backed into his companion's legs-he hadn’t even seen the magician move. Athryn offered his hand, a smile on his lips. Khirro looked at him, then back at the rat.
“Gods, that thing scared me.”
“I see that,” Athryn said with a chuckle.
Had it been anyone else laughing at his expense, or had this occurred a few months before, Khirro would have felt embarrassed and uncomfortable, but the happenings since that day on the walls of the Isthmus Fortress had changed him. If a rat startled him, so be it-he’d killed men and ferocious beasts, so he saw no reason to prove himself to vermin, and he knew Athryn meant nothing by his laughter.
Khirro accepted his companion’s hand and allowed him to help him up. They stood side-by-side watching the rat when a second, smaller one appeared in the hole, then a third.
“A mother protecting her babies,” Athryn said.
“Hmm. Nice place to live.”
Khirro brushed the back of his breeches, sending seeds to the ground where next year they would sprout and produce more tomatoes to go to waste. He breathed deep, held the air in his lungs for a second, then released it, thankful for the rat surprising him rather than the corpse reanimating to threaten him. He looked at Athryn.
“What were you doing?”
“Ascertaining the man’s cause of death.”
Khirro chuckled. “Did you not see the hole in his chest?”
“Yes, but it came after his death, put there by your friend, Mother Rat.”
“Then what?”
“Pestilence.”
“You mean disease?”
“Worse. Magic caused this. Evil magic.”
“Someone cast a spell on this man?”
Athryn shook his head. “If only that were so. It is worse. Much worse.”
“What do you mean?”
Athryn strode away without answering. Khirro looked at the rat and its babies, at the man’s parched skin and empty eye sockets, then followed his companion, curious to find out what he thought happened. They covered fifteen paces before Athryn stopped again, lifted his hand and pointed. Another corpse.
They crunched across the dried vines and found the body of what they thought a teenage boy, though it was impossible to tell his actual age with the way his skin shrunken against his bones gave him the look of an old man. Khirro looked at this body, then back over his shoulder at the other they’d left, aware of the obvious similarity between them.
The same thing had killed them both.
“There will be more,” Athryn said looking down at the face of the dead boy.
“How do you know? What caused it?”
The magician faced Khirro, the set of his jaw grim, his blue eyes serious. “You spoke of undead soldiers.”
“Yes.”
“A price must be paid for the use of this kind of magic.” He gestured toward the corpse. “Only the true Necromancer can perform such feats.”
“But Darestat is dead.”
Athryn shook his head. “There is much you do not understand about magic, Khirro. Darestat is gone from our world, but did you not see him with me?”
Khirro remembered the disturbance in the air he’d seen shimmering in front of Athryn, thought of the way his friend had spoken to it and it answered, but he’d dismissed it as an illusion despite what Athryn had said. Khirro saw Ghaul kill the Necromancer, saw the old man become mist and disappear.
“I don’t know exactly what I saw.”
“The
n you will have to take my word on faith. Darestat lives. Perhaps not in the form of life you understand, but he does. And there can be only one Necromancer. When another seeks to usurp his power, balance is lost. There are consequences.”
He gestured toward the withered corpse at their feet. One of the boy’s arms and his legs were curled tight to his body, the tendons beneath the dried flesh shrunken and tight. His other arm stuck up in the air, extended toward the Heavens, as though he reached out to touch the fields of the dead.
“How many more will there be?”
Athryn shook his head. “I do not know. The usurper must have expended much power. Many, to be sure.”
Khirro’s thoughts flashed to Emeline, the baby, his parents and brother.
Did this happen to them, too?
“Hey.”
The word came from a distance, floating across the dried-out autumn field. Athryn grabbed Khirro’s arm firmly enough it hurt and it took him a second to realize the word they’d heard was spoken in a different language.
He looked up and saw the horsemen, close enough to make out the armor on their bodies and the swords hanging at their belts.
“Gods,” he cursed.
True warriors aren’t caught off-guard. Shyn wouldn’t have been. Nor Ghaul.
The thought of the traitorous Ghaul set his teeth on edge, but Athryn’s grip wrenching him away from the corpse pushed it out of his mind.
“We must go.”
Athryn released his hold and broke into a run; Khirro followed close behind. Their feet beat the dried tomato plants, crushed brittle vines and rotted fruit beneath their boots. Khirro scanned the field ahead as they ran and saw nowhere to hide, no place to slip away or make a stand. The sound of hooves pounding earth soon overtook the crackle and crunch rhythm of his own feet beating the ground.
We can’t get away.
“Athryn,” Khirro called between gasps of breath. “There’s nowhere to go.”