Death Mark

by Robert J. Schwalb

  She raised a pale hand and dropped it.

  Loren sprang forward, running as fast as his legs could carry him. He screamed a meaningless battle cry, leading the fearful and the enthralled at the vanguard’s center, first to battle and last to leave it. The living lent their shouts to his, voices feeble in the silence of those hundreds upon hundreds following them.

  The village wall loomed ahead as Loren drew near. Arrows flew into the air, streaking toward them, but Loren barreled on, undaunted. The first struck his sword and spun away. The rest followed, falling among his companions, thumping into dirt and flesh, a whooshing sound pierced by shrieks and moans. One bit into Loren’s chest, punching through the thick padded hides and into his skin. Another bounced off his helmet. A third sank into his thigh. He pushed on.

  The wall was close. Loren carried his heavy blade and leaped the last few feet, throwing himself through the air to catching the wall’s top with one outstretched hand. A defender, a half-starved man with a basket for a helmet, moved to dislodge him. Loren wrenched himself up, using his legs and arm to draw himself onto the battlements. The guard slammed into him but bounced back, sprawling on the walkway. Other guards dropped bows and readied spears. One downward stroke from Loren sent the basket and head flying from the guard’s shoulders and cleared the path to the next foes to die. A few fell back in fear. Most wore grim expressions. They knew they stared at death and were resolved to die fighting.

  Loren became their doom. The warriors jabbed at him with stone-tipped spears. Some even pricked his flesh, but Loren’s heavy blade rose and fell, chopping weapon hafts and hands, heads and limbs. Body parts flew up into the air along with crimson showers until the stones became slick with their blood.

  More screams sounded from behind him. His men had reached the walls. Still the defenders fought. Their oaths and challenges turned to fearful screams when the undead host clambered up the wall and battered down their barricades.

  Blazing fire streaked overhead. It fell into the community, exploding where it landed, greasy black columns rising up from craters dark sorcery created.

  Loren spared a glace to where Temmnya and Aeris stood. Ashes swirled around them, the land dead all around, a consequence of her magic. Aeris crumpled. Loren had suspected she had been using him, but his fears were finally confirmed. Yet Aeris had gone to her willingly, hadn’t he?

  He looked out across the village. People scrambled and fought the flames, throwing sand, dirt, and even precious water. A few had the wisdom to flee. Shrinking bodies ran up the dusty road, seeking shelter at Tyr, still miles away. Let them run. They would die like all the rest. There was no escape from Temmnya.

  Loren surveyed the damage and swallowed his shame. He was a butcher of women and children, old men and cowards. He growled. The village burned. Bodies littered the ground. They had spared no one. The dead would rise. The dead would serve as all the others Loren had killed. It was worse than the convict fights back in Nibenay, when hundreds of club-wielding criminals were herded at spear point to face off against well-armored, well-armed, well-trained gladiators. He had been on the winning side of those nightmares more than once. He made peace with those memories. His foes then had been armed criminals after all. But the people he killed for Temmnya were blameless, their crime resting in their unwillingness to flee when they had the chance.

  It wasn’t like Loren could have refused to fight. Last time he tried to hold his living soldiers back, Temmnya made it very clear who was in charge, and it wasn’t him. And if the warriors balked, gold’s promise eased their weapons from sheathes and closed their eyes to the wrongs they wrought at sword and spear point. He still ached from the agony her touch had imparted. Her cool hands could bring wondrous pleasure or pain worse than Loren imagined the Dragon himself could inflict.

  Aeris was no better. He had surrendered to her. He was her henchman, a toady, a slave, and the feverish expression he wore, a mix of ecstasy and self-loathing, told Loren his partner was lost. And Loren hated him for it. Maybe he had hated Aeris for a while and refused to see it. But each time he looked at his one-time friend, he felt bitterness.

  Temmnya sent Loren and the scant few soldiers who still lived to clean up. They had the unpleasant task of killing the dying. A swift slash across the throat was better than being food for the tembos—craven, doglike predators—they saw stalking the hills a day back.

  Loren reached the village square. Scorch marks still smoked from the ground where Aeris and Temmnya’s spells had struck. Death clotted the air from the power they drew to hurl their filthy magic. It was little more than a few dozen paces across, with an old stone well standing in the center. A childish hand had scrawled pictures on the well’s stones, crude images hinting at the life there, at families, hard work, and quiet joys free from the hardships in the city but faced with the struggles life beyond its walls entailed.

  Squat brick buildings stood on all sides. The roads were not much more than alleys, but they were the community’s arteries all the same, and like them, blood stained their walls. Laundry lines hung between the second-story windows, with stained clothing set to air out before serving another day. The streets would never again see the dramas and tensions, never hear the laughter and conversation, for the place, the village with no name, was dead, and its people, ashes and dust.

  Loren spied another soldier limping down a side street, his face twisted in a grimace of distaste, dreading the moment he would find a survivor and knowing he would do what he had to do when he did. He threw a glance at Loren. The gladiator turned away before he could catch it.

  The street beckoned and he complied. He took a few steps. He moved his sword to his other hand. Blasted heat made his hands slick. It was an hour past high sun, and the heat shimmers danced on the cobbled streets. Loren wiped his hand on his leather breeches and took his sword back.

  Dark holes led into homes he had helped turn into tombs. Loren stepped inside each one. He examined the dead without touching them. He nudged an old dwarf with his boot and recoiled when a savage wound in its torso opened to release an oozing slick of congealed blood. The other bodies had been mauled as well.

  Loren backed out from the house into the bright light once more. He looked up the road and counted: a dozen more at least.

  He sighed. He looked back to the square. He could still see the well. Something flapped down from the sky to perch on the lip. It was hideous with black and red feathers, a fleshy head with a wattle on the neck, and a long serrated beak. It screamed at Loren, cocking its head once it had voiced its rage. More kestrekels joined it until the square vanished beneath their feathers and droppings.

  Loren returned to his task, angry at what he had to do. He gave cursory glances into each building, not bothering to climb up the rickety ladders to the flat roofs where many people slept at night. He found no one alive and thanked his father’s memory for it because he knew he could not kill anymore that day, even if it meant his own life.

  Done with his section, or close enough for him, he made his way back to the encampment. Temmnya claimed the leader’s house, a fine house, though still small and crude by any city’s standards, not far from the village’s center. She would emerge at night to call forth the dead as she had in each village before, blue energy dancing through the streets, throwing up darkness as they passed and rousing the corpses from their homes to stumble out and join the swelling hordes she commanded.

  Loren passed the few soldiers hunkered down inside the buildings where they drank stolen water and ate stolen food. One soldier offered a cup. Loren waved it away and continued.

  He had a growing suspicion Temmnya intended to attack Tyr. It seemed madness. Kalak was dead, and with him went all the old truths. If one sorcerer-king could die, none were safe. The old order was showing its age. Perhaps it was the time for greater evils than even the sorcerer-kings could conjure. He shuddered to think of what Tyr would be like with Temmnya as its queen. She would kill all and make them undead slaves.
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  He pushed his way into the Temmnya’s command center, ignoring the complaint from the guard he shoved aside, and found his mistress leaning back in a chair, her legs propped up on a table. Her drake lay coiled up nearby, tail swishing and head rising as Loren approached. Aeris was there too, all gaunt and haunted. He noticed Loren but looked away, too ashamed to meet his old friend’s gaze. He had every reason for self-recrimination after the horrors he had helped create. Loren’s hands weren’t clean either. The damage to their friendship would never heal, though. Loren was certain.

  “All done?” asked Temmnya. Her red lips parted in a smile, revealing white teeth behind.

  Loren nodded.

  “See, that wasn’t hard, now was it? You did well, Loren,” she said.

  “I’m a butcher,” he replied, voice even.

  “Oh, you are and it’s what you were born to be.”

  Loren bristled. Changing the subject, he said, “I found fewer folk than I thought I would find.”

  She didn’t answer him. She turned to Aeris. “You did very well too. I must say, for a slave,” she paused, “for a former slave, you did quite well. Who was your mentor?”

  Aeris stammered. Loren watched. He wouldn’t know the name. Aeris never spoke of his past. Not once during all the long nights did he ever mention a person or place. Loren had been able to put together was he was Draji. It was clear in his accent and his swarthy skin.

  When Aeris still offered nothing, Temmnya laughed, a shrill cackle rousing her drake and sending it slinking away. “I like him, Loren. I truly do. Such modesty. Such loyalty!” She laughed again, shaking her head. She stopped and frowned. She leaned forward, dropping the chair’s feet to the ground. Turning toward Aeris, all serious, she said, “I asked you a question, slave. Who taught you?”

  Before Aeris could answer, a horn sounded from outside. All in the room turned toward the window. Loren wrenched his sword free. Aeris drew a fractured obsidian sphere. Temmnya’s anger fled. “Put those away. These are friends. Show respect.” She stood and snapped her fingers. Her drake waddled to her side. She affected a calm, relaxed posture. Loren had been around her long enough to read her tension. It was in the way she held her eyes, a slight twitch at the corners.

  Loren lowered his sword but didn’t sheathe it. He notice Aeris still held his rock. Loren could not guess what it did or how it would help matters. Aeris had done many things he would never understand. Loren was surprised, however, to see worry in Aeris’s expression and even more surprised when Aeris mouthed, Trust me.

  Commotion on the street alerted them visitors were close. Loren walked to the door, leaving Aeris and Temmnya behind. The soldiers had pulled back to make room for the new warriors. They were a ragged band, a mix of humans and other races. Each wore a horned badge on piecemeal armor, and the weapons they carried were shoddy and scavenged. They had a hard look about them and carried themselves like the warriors Loren knew they were.

  A muscled giant of a man led the procession and stopped before Loren. The man radiated hatred. A hand on his arm broke his gaze, and he realized Temmnya was at his side.

  “So sweet,” she murmured and shoved him behind her. “Kyjkar, be welcome,” she said and bowed her head.

  The man nodded and gave Loren another look before returning his attention to the Shom woman. When he spoke, it was a rumble, a deep and unpleasant noise. “Temmnya. I bring one hundred swords, as we agreed.”

  Temmnya bowed again and said, “My thanks, Kyjkar. Your fierce warriors will bring us a great victory.”

  The leader nodded. He was waiting for something. Temmnya noticed.

  “Ah. Payment, of course.”

  His eyes burned.

  “You’ll find them in the cellar.”

  Kyjkar looked into the room and smiled.

  “Perfect,” she said. “You and your men are tired. We need not be off until nightfall. Go. Claim your reward and be at ease.”

  The slave tribe leader waved his warriors forward. Almost as one, they drew weapons and headed inside the leader’s house.

  “Aeris, Loren? You had better come along. Now.” She hurried from the house, and Loren and the wizard followed. They weren’t but a few steps away when the victims’ screaming reached their ears.

  Loren imagined what went on in the building behind him. Those savages would kill and rape and maybe even eat them. He could not bear to hear the cries and stormed off.

  Temmnya and Aeris followed.

  Loren could take no more. He would serve her no longer. He spun and grabbed Temmnya’s arm, wrenching her close. He grabbed her neck and squeezed. Loren knew he’d have to kill her or she’d kill him, but he could not do what she required anymore. He would not serve her evil. He tightened his grip. Her face purpled.

  “Loren, no!” exclaimed Aeris.

  He ignored the half-elf as he looked into the woman’s fluttering eyes. She struggled to breathe and thrashed in his grasp.

  “Let her go, Loren,” Aeris said.

  He turned from her and saw Aeris standing a few paces away at the front of twenty or more zombies, a groaning, clawing mass.

  “What? You’ll kill me?” Loren laughed.

  “And you’ll just serve her anyway. One last chance, Loren. Let her go.”

  “But those people … they were innocent—”

  “Just like all the others you killed.” Aeris raised his hand. In it sat the black stone. It had grown larger, darker, somehow expanding its presence. Threads of darkness wormed out from it, licking the air like serpents’ tongues.

  Loren threw Temmnya to the ground. She pulled herself up, gasping. She clutched at her throat and had the temerity to look wounded. “Naughty, naughty Loren,” she croaked.

  The undead withdrew at Aeris’s dismissal, though the half-elf remained, ready to destroy Loren should the ex-gladiator give him reason.

  “I’m done. To the Nine Hells with both of you,” said Loren. He turned away and left them both behind. He saw Kutok and a few soldiers huddled in the shade cast by a roof.

  He almost reached the corner before he felt as if he couldn’t take another step, as if there were no reason to keep walking, no point. I should go back. Temmnya needs me. He didn’t know where the thoughts came from. He tried to push them away, yet he found himself turning back. He turned and saw Aeris cringing and Temmnya standing, her hand extended toward him. She rubbed her throat with the other. The scorched ground around her confirmed she had used magic against him.

  As he walked, he wondered if the undead felt as he did—no will, no control, a prisoner in one’s own body. He fought against each step, but in no time at all, he stood before her once more. She showed her teeth and placed a hand on his chest. “You’re mine, Loren, now and always. I should kill you, but you are less useful dead. From now on, Loren, you will do as I say for as long as I say. Don’t look for death, my darling. It holds no relief for you. When it’s time for you to die, it will be long and lingering. This I promise.”

  Dawn came to the Ringing Mountains and found Melech seated on an escarpment overlooking a slope littered with jagged peaks and dark defiles. He sat with his head in his hands, exhaustion clinging lover-tight to his body. His eyes were slits, his face still swollen from his broken nose. His stomach rumbled and his mouth was far too dry. It had been at least a day since he and his companions had found any water and longer since he had sucked the marrow from the lizard he had managed to kill.

  He hadn’t slept in just as long. He wouldn’t sleep, not while Kep was with him. The halfling had tried to murder him once, and Melech didn’t plan to make it any easier for his one-time friend. He looked up the slope to the ledge where Kep and the woman who called herself Alaeda had slept. She was up. She was always moving before dawn. Melech doubted she herself had rested. They were allies of circumstance, he and the Alaeda woman. She had no illusions about Kep and watched him with the same suspicion Melech had. Why she didn’t just kill him, or even both of them, was a puzzle he hadn’t quite
figured out.

  He turned away from her and examined the loaned dagger. It was steel and worth enough for Melech to live like a noble for many years. What drew his eye, as it had several times since escaping from the cavern’s darkness, was the diamond set in the pommel. A glittering gemstone, itself of enormous value, was cut to resemble the House Vordon sigil. Alaeda had loaned him the blade, saving his life in the process, so the blade had to make her a Vordon.

  He heard a few pebbles skitter down the slope and looked to see who was approaching. Alaeda picked her way between the rocks. When she reached Melech, she said, “Thanks for keeping watch.”

  “You bet. Thanks for the dagger. You want it back?”

  She reached for it, then closed her hand and let it drop to her side. “I don’t deserve it,” she said.

  “So. I’m a bit curious. What were you doing in the under-city in the first place? Following us?” She had to be a spy. She had picked up on his inquires and came to see what he and Kep were up to. He cursed Korvak again.

  Alaeda looked away. “We have a hard day’s travel ahead. We’ll need to get moving.”

  Melech got to his feet, irritated. In another time and place, Melech might have been drawn to Alaeda. She had dusky bronze skin, a heart-shaped face, and intelligent brown eyes. Her brown-almost-black hair was cut short, but Melech could see the curls in the sweaty locks sticking to her forehead. Her clothes were simple—a tunic, breeches, boots reaching up to her knees. They were spattered with blood and venom left from their battle in the cave.

  She started the climb back to the ledge and the trail. Melech followed. The trail was old, a winding path following the mountain’s contours. They had been traveling it for a day, hoping it would lead out from the mountains and into the valley below. They might have taken the wider route the undead had used, but Alaeda steered them off the path, fearing more undead in those tunnels.

  Kep was awake. He hugged his knees, sitting near the rocky wall climbing up and out of sight overhead. Inscrutable as he had been since escaping the cave, his eyes tracked Melech’s movements. It was hard to believe they had come to such an end, he and Kep. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Torston wanted Melech dead and sent the halfling to make sure it happened. And if the halfling couldn’t do it, the muls would. Kep’s willingness to go through with it shocked Melech. It hung between them, a corpse of their camaraderie, and Melech couldn’t bear its stench.