Necromancer's Gambit (The Flesh & Bone Trilogy Book 1)

by A J Dalton

  ‘This talisman is a powerful one, Nostracles. It will tempt you, but you should only use it to protect, never to punish. I still wonder if it is unfair to hang its weight around your neck, but know you will have need of its strength. I fear dark times are upon us, Nostracles, very dark times. I will pray for you.’

  ‘Father, it is ill of me to question a gift, but I do it out of love for you. Will you not need its strength?’

  ‘Son, you are my strength. That is enough. Go now.’

  And they had left as bidden. The Scourge had the unsettling feeling that he would not see the priest again either. The thought upset him, for he had always had a deep respect for the faithful and honest priest, albeit no god or goddess. If something were to happen to the priest, he would be angry with everyone and every thing, very angry.

  Fighting against himself and knowing he needed a distraction, he glared at the road and considered their mission. There were two approaches he could take: hunt for the necromancer, or hunt for the band of mercenaries that must have been involved in taking the body from the field. The necromancer might still be somewhere in the locale of the battlefield, but it seemed unlikely, given that it was all but guaranteed the theft of a King’s hero would be noticed by anyone reading the field. So, the necromancer would be on the move, out in the open, unless he or she went to ground quickly. But why steal a hero unless you wanted to take them somewhere to do what they were good at? Hmm. Curious.

  That left the mercenaries, which meant Holter’s Cross, the only town he liked to visit even less than Corinus. Holter’s Cross had grown up at the intersection of the King’s Road going north towards Accritania and the road going east towards the coast: the perfect place for those with skills that might be employed by either the war or piracy.

  The kingdom had suffered such a place to grow up because of times of desperate need. And that need had made Holter’s Cross rich, which in turn had brought in more weapons-for-hire. It had now reached the point where a full army would be needed to clean up Holter’s Cross, and even then the outcome would not be a forgone conclusion.

  ‘Good morning! I feel great!’

  The Scourge groaned…

  ‘What’s to eat?’

  and ground his teeth…

  ‘Who’s this fellow riding along behind us then?’

  as he struggled to master himself.

  ‘Where are we? Wow! I must have been more tired than I realised.’

  The Scourge turned slowly in his saddle and said dourly, ‘Please, do not let me stop you from introducing yourself to him. It is worth the time talking to him, if you need any urging, as he is to be our travelling companion. He is a very good listener.’

  With that, the Scourge turned back to the road and spurred his horse on so that he rode some distance ahead of the other two.

  They rode for some time, Young Strap chattering happily and Nostracles giving the odd brief answer. The Scourge looked up at the huge, cobalt arch of the sky and felt lost for a second. A speck of darkness drifted slowly across his vision, presumably an eagle or some such.

  ‘Mind where you’re going!’ came a shrill, young voice.

  His horse was startled and danced sideways. He wrestled it round and glared down at a young girl at the side of the road. She was thirteen summers or so old and clearly had the infectious vitality of someone that age: her hair threatened to outshine the sun and her eyes were like bluebells in summer. To say she was pretty was to compare an apple to an orange. She could only be described in terms unique to her and her nature. The Scourge even found it difficult to look at her for her too long.

  She stood with hands on hips, frowning up at the rider. He refused to be intimidated by a slip of a girl, no matter what strange effect her presence had, and snapped:

  ‘You should know better than to play in the road, child! Where did you come from all of a sudden, eh?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you, you dolt! You don’t know who I am, do you?’

  ‘I don’t care who you are, my fine little madam. Now stand aside! I am on King’s business. Detain me a second longer and you will be guilty of treason. Then I’ll have to tan your backside.’

  ‘I represent a greater authority!’ the girl all but shouted. ‘Are you blind?’

  The Scourge ran an eye over the girl’s clothes. The high quality wool, the tailored fit, and the painstaking work that must have gone into the embroidery, all spoke of expense and privilege. No doubt, she had some status in a local, rich temple, but what she was doing out here, alone and unprotected, he couldn’t fathom. By her arrogance, he would think her a high priestess, but she wore no torc or symbol of rank.

  ‘There is no greater authority than the King in Dur Memnos, child. To believe otherwise is not just naïve but dangerous too. You are fortunate that I am too busy to drag you back to Corinus and have you flogged in front of the palace. You are fortunate that I have developed a certain tolerance of the foolish pride of youth during my time. You are fortunate that it was this Guardian you met and not the one just down the road back there, who is new and overly-enthusiastic in his service to the King. If I were you, I would run along before he gets here!’

  ‘Stop it!’ the girl said angrily, stamping her foot. (The Scourge decided that she wasn’t so pretty after all.) ‘You know as well as I do that Young Strap is perfectly harmless. Honestly, Janvil, you have always been the most difficult and frustrating of my servants. Why…’

  ‘Where did you hear that name?’ the Scourge growled threateningly. ‘I have given it up. None may speak it! I am warning you, girl…’

  ‘It was the name given you when you entered the world. It cannot be given up!’ she cut in. ‘It is the name I gave you!’

  ‘The sun has got to your head, child. Do they mistake you for some prophet or oracle?’

  Young Strap and Nostracles had come up to them now. Nostracles gawked at the girl. Young Strap promptly fell forwards and started snoring against his horse’s neck. The priest hurried to dismount and cast himself full-length in the mud before the girl’s feet. He squirmed with his face in the dirt, fearing to look up.

  ‘Holy One! Holy One!’ he squealed.

  ‘Nostracles, man!’ the Scourge called out in consternation. ‘Get a grip on yourself. Who is this girl that you should be so unmanned? What ails you? Do you have the falling sickness? If she is a sorceress, I will end this upon the instant!’ He drew his sword in one fluid movement and kicked his horse forwards.

  The beast refused to move. The Scourge was at a loss. In all the years he’s ridden this horse, never before had it refused to obey him.

  The young maiden smiled sweetly. ‘Do you require so very much evidence, Janvil? Will you not submit to the evidence of your senses? Do you truly dare to draw your sword on the goddess? Have you taken complete leave of your senses? I thought I had gifted you with more intelligence than that. It is fortunate for you, Janvil, that I know you. It is fortunate for you that I know your stubbornness is not overweening pride but a fundamental dedication to principle.’

  The Scourge put aside the temptation to vault from his saddle and reach the “girl” in a single bound. He took a calming breath and tried to reappraise his situation. He needed to know what rules existed if any. ‘What do you want? Who are you? Shakri?’

  ‘I am Shakri,’ she said simply. ‘And try not to be so surly, Janvil, it rankles.’

  ‘If you truly know me, then you know this is me at my most polite, goddess or no. How do I know you are the holy Shakri and not some masquerading spirit?’

  The girl gritted her teeth, clearly struggling for patience. ‘It is simple, Janvil. No entity would dare such a masquerade for fear of my wrath. I find it hard to credit that any would actually need to question that, let alone question me!’

  ‘These are strange times, goddess, when a prudent man questions everything. They are strange times indeed when a goddess appears to a mere Guardian on the road.’

  ‘Very well, Janvil, I shall pardon your b
lasphemy, as long as there is no repeat of it.’

  The Scourge bit his tongue and bowed his head in an approximation of humble gratitude. He should probably get down from his horse so that the goddess didn’t have to look up at him. He should probably join Nostracles in the mud… but his self-defining stubbornness kept him in the saddle. Besides, if the goddess wanted him in the mud, surely she could simply exercise her divine will and cause it to happen. What prevented her? Come to that, what had stopped her doing all manner of things? Maybe there were rules after all.

  He cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘I can’t think of an entirely polite way to ask this so, what do you want? How can I help you? Or is it blasphemy to assume a goddess might need help? Sorry, that seems to be making it worse. I’ll just stop speaking.’

  He thought he saw a smile flutter at the corners of her mouth. At least she had a sense of humour – her first endearing quality. What was he thinking? Just stop.

  ‘Nostracles,’ she said in a commanding tone. ‘Rise and explain for me.’

  The priest came instantly to his feet, but still kept his head hung low and did not presume to gaze upon the sacred avatar of Shakri, mother of creation, goddess of life. In reverential tones, he spoke: ‘Not only are we gifted with life, we are also allowed the free will to live that life. Shakri offers us her divine protection, but we must choose to take it up. It cannot be imposed upon us. In a way, Shakri requires us to help her so that she can help us.’

  That definitely sounded like a rule. It gave a point to prayer as well. Interesting. He contemplated the goddess again. She currently wore the guise of a beautiful and innocent child, but the movement of her eyes and postures she adopted betrayed her appearance. She was simply too knowing, too sure of herself, too intimidating, too powerful, too… everything. She was everything. She was creation! And yet his spirit did not exult in her presence, did not yearn for holy communion. Was it a weakness in his spirit; did he recognise his own unworthiness? Probably. But there was something else too. He did not like the emotional manipulation that the use of the girl’s image represented. It meant he couldn’t quite bring himself to trust her, to have complete faith in her. He couldn’t help seeing her as slightly… duplicitous, even if that made him guilty of sin. He knew it was blasphemous to judge the divine, but figured his soul was probably in as much trouble as it could get anyway, so had nothing to lose.

  ‘I see,’ the Scourge said slowly. ‘Or at least I think I do. Holy One, I beg the benefit of your divine wisdom so that I might better help myself.’

  Shakri pursed her lips. ‘Very well, Janvil, that will have to do, I suppose. I want you to stop the war.’

  The Scourge blinked. ‘Er… the war that’s been going on for as long as anyone can remember? That one? Fine, no problem. Consider it done!’

  Her brows lowered and her eyes changed to a deep purple across which electrical storms danced.

  ‘Guardian!’ Nostracles said in panicked tones. ‘The goddess could simply choose another for this task. She could cast you down and ensure you live out your days in abject misery. Every man and woman would turn from you. No animal would abide your touch. You would be cursed, outcast, utterly damned.’

  The Scourge wasn’t sure he believed the priest, but was rattled enough to apologise. ‘The enormity of this meeting has completely upset my equilibrium, Holy One. Forgive me. It is not my desire to anger you. How may I end the war? Would it not set me against the will of my King, him I have sworn to serve above all other?’

  ‘You have not sworn to perpetuate the war, Janvil. And I would not ask you to forswear yourself. Whatever service you do me or creation must be by your own choice or conscience. Hear me, though, when I tell you that too many are dying. There are more of the dead than the living abroad now, and I fear for my realm.’

  ‘Holiness, no!’ Nostracles choked, raising his eyes to her briefly as horror made him forget himself. ‘Creation itself? It cannot fall!’

  ‘It can, faithful priest. For life and creation can be fragile at times, you know that. Such a time is upon us now. Janvil, you pursue the necromancer and the hero, do you not?’

  The Scourge hesitated to answer.

  ‘I was there and saw it all,’ she chided him. ‘That is why I have put Young Strap to sleep. I saw the white sorceress ensnare him. Janvil, would you request my help?’

  ‘Yes, Holy One.’

  ‘Then I may tell you that the necromancer is named Mordius and he heads north for Accritania.’

  ‘And the hero? Why did this Mordius raise him? Who is this hero?’

  ‘I may not tell you that.’

  Curious. There seemed to be a rule about what a god could reveal. ‘Can you tell me why they head for Accritania?’

  ‘No. I would simply ask you to be… careful if you manage to track them down.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I cannot say any more or you will have unnatural knowledge, which will deprive you of free will.’

  ‘Surely knowledge does not deprive someone of free will!’ the Scourge protested.

  Shakri smiled sadly. ‘How wrong you are. You have more free will than I do, Janvil. You do not know how lucky you are. Good Nostracles will explain. Perhaps you will understand.’

  In a blink she was gone. The day suddenly seemed darker than it had been before. No, not darker as such; the colours just seemed more muted, less essential.

  Nostracles was shaking. ‘We are blessed! We are blessed!’

  Young Strap was soon stirring. ‘I feel great!’ he declared.

  ‘We’re not that blessed, then,’ the Scourge muttered.

  ***

  The physicality of the human body is not a pleasant thing. If it’s not emitting noxious gases, leaking acidic fluids or excreting foul solids, then it is shedding dead skin and moulting hair. It is a clumsy and imperfect tool, in need of constant repair and correction. It makes distasteful, organic demands on its owner to ingest nourishment, to waste hours snoring, to expel seed occasionally, and the list goes on.

  That was the thinking of Innius, the ascetic priest of Lacrimos anyway. He saw his body as both limited and limiting. It constrained his potential. He yearned to break free of it and soar as a spirit, as he sometimes briefly managed when he achieved a deep enough trance state.

  His body constantly needed attention and took time away from the work of serving his master, Lacrimos, who demanded that the King of Accritania, Orastes, be watched all the time. The bargain must be kept at all costs.

  Innius wiped his blood-speckled hands assiduously on a cloth. He would have to rub them raw with pumice later in the evening, to get them properly clean of contamination, but he could not afford to leave the blood-letting now. The boy was too close to being ready. Soon, his shell would be a vessel for the holy Lacrimos, at least for a short time. What greater blessing could be bestowed upon an unworthy body? The boy was privileged, and dying was but a small price to pay, to Innius’s mind. The priest was almost jealous of their latest victim. But he was not permitted death and freedom until the god’s will had been carried out.

  The child was laid out face down, strapped to a raised metal frame. His naked flesh was crisscrossed with a thousand small incisions. The bright beads of blood that had once trickled freely down torso and limbs had all but ceased now. Every few minutes, there was but a single red ruby released from what had once been an overflowing treasury.

  It had taken the priest three sleepless days of hard work to prepare the vessel. He was dizzy with tiredness, just when he needed to be able to concentrate most. A moment of inattention and all would be lost. His judgement would need to be perfect or the child would die before he knew it. And there weren’t many unchristened children left that the priest could use. In fact, there weren’t many children in Accritania at all these days. The war had destroyed the population, and the families of those that still lived. Precious few people seemed to want to bring children into such a world, not that Innius blamed them for wanting to
avoid the disgusting and grizzly experience of fornication, pregnancy and birthing that was required.

  Of course, it was all part of the design of Lacrimos that the living disappear, but it ironically gave the god fewer and fewer opportunities to possess individuals in this realm. He had tried using adults in his work instead of children, but had never had any success with them. Always they understood that they were dying and would fight somehow, making their moment of death impossible to predict and regulate. Children, on the other hand, in their innocence did not really understand death and would move steadily towards it as if drifting into sleep.

  It would not be too long before none of that mattered anymore. Finally, Innius would be able to slip his mortal chains and leave the prison of his stinking carcass behind, perhaps to rule a realm of his own.

  He slapped one of his cheeks hard as he realised his thoughts had gone astray. The stinging cleared his head and he focussed on the boy again. Another drop fell to the floor. Fighting down nausea, the priest dipped a finger in the blood and put it to his tongue. There was little life left. One more drop? There was no movement beneath the eyelids and no obvious signs of breathing. The sheen of blood and filth across the boy’s chest slowly bulged as one last drop began to form.

  Innius stood and quickly began to chant the sacred words of summoning. They were difficult but he had been rehearsing for days, with a fierce discipline. He completed them with a gasp of effort and prayed his timing was right.

  The body remained as it was. Come on, damn you! The blood had tasted right. The child must be at the threshold, one foot in each realm. He had not made a mistake with the words, he was sure of it. He trembled. If he had made a mistake… Lacrimos and death were never forgiving.

  A twitch and then the body arched on the frame. It drew in air so that it would be able to speak.

  ‘I am here!’ it croaked.

  ‘Great Lacrimos!’ Innius sighed and fell to his knees to look up into the young face worn by his god. ‘Tell me your will, I beg you.’