by A J Dalton
‘Two bowls of beef stew, then,’ Young Strap said enthusiastically. ‘We have been on the road a few days and would welcome some good home-cooking. I have never been to your fair city before.’
Nostracles crooked a finger and beckoned the innkeeper closer. As their host leaned forward, the priest grabbed his wrist.
‘What the…’ he stopped. A look of wonderment came over his face like the sun coming from behind the clouds.
Young Strap shunted his chair back in alarm as he saw the priest’s hand glowing where it met the innkeeper’s arm. ‘What are you doing, Nostracles?’
The two of them ignored him. At last, the glow dwindled to nothing and Nostracles released the innkeeper. To Young Strap’s amazement, there were tears coursing down the large man’s cheeks.
‘How can I ever thank you? You don’t know what this means to me… to us!’
‘It is the blessing of the goddess,’ Nostracles said humbly.
‘It is a miracle! I will pray to her every day. Yet is there nothing else I can do?’
‘Apart from the ale and the stew for my eager friend,’ Nostracles smiled tolerantly, ‘you might be able to relate certain information to us.’
‘Of course, if it serves the goddess.’
‘It does, for she has set us a task that seems to be intertwined with my friend’s need to find a hero who was retrieved from a battlefield by mercenaries of Holter’s Cross.’
The innkeeper glanced around the inn to check none of the other patrons were listening in and then took a seat with Young Strap and Nostracles. ‘One of the mercenary bands has been flashing gold around recently. Word is they completed an unusual commission, a commission involving the procurement of a dead body! Now we all know what that’s about and no one with any sense asks too many more questions, especially when that body is said to have belonged to the King’s army. What is less well known is that one of the band was overheard to brag that they brought back the corpse of Balthagar hisself!’
‘Not the Battle-leader!’ Young Strap whispered.
‘The very same, the very same!’
Nostracles nodded and Young Strap sat with his jaw hanging. Satisfied that he had shared something of significance and value, the innkeeper rose and said in more normal tones, as he moved away, ‘And that’s about the size of it. Three silvers for the horses, ale and meals. I’ll be seeing to your order now, gentlemen, if that’s to your satisfaction.’
They sat in contemplative silence until they had been served – with a surreptitious wink – and they had all but consumed everything in front of them.
‘Surely it’s a great blow to the King’s army if the Battle-leader has been lost,’ Young Strap speculated aloud.
Nostracles shrugged. ‘Surely.’
‘I’ve never seen him, have you?’
‘Can’t say that I have.’
‘Oh well, I can see why the King is so set on retrieving and releasing the great hero of Dur Memnos. He is deserving of a proper burial, with state honours, the prayers and blessings of every temple and official days of mourning.’
‘His life should be celebrated, yes. I hope the temple of Shakri still survives in Corinus.’
Young Strap nodded gloomily. ‘I’ll drink to that. Do you think we could prevail on the innkeeper further? The ale is very good here. What did you do to him, by the way?’
At the moment, the inn door banged open and the Scourge blew in and descended on them. ‘Don’t get too comfortable, you two. We’re leaving. You settle the bill while I get the horses.’ And he was gone as quickly as he came.
‘The man was impotent. He and his wife have always wanted children.’
‘You can do that?’
‘The goddess can do that,’ the priest amended.
‘Cool! I suppose we’d better go then, before the old man has even more to complain about.’
‘Are you coming?’ came a shout from outside. ‘I’m no serving maid to wait upon your pleasure, you know!’
‘You don’t say!’ Young Strap muttered, making Nostracles smile.
***
CHAPTER EIGHT: But accepting of the gods’ laws
His mother had wanted him to be a musician like his father and much of the family’s remaining wealth had been spent on his tutelage. He’d studied hard and mastered the difficult greater lute. As his fame had spread, he had had engagements to give a performance in one of the houses of the noble families of Corinus almost every night. There had even been talk of the possibility of his being hosted by the well-to-do of Maston, the second city of Dur Memnos, for a summer.
Looking back on that time of lights, liqueurs and lingering liaisons, it all seemed like a dream now. Over the years, most of the great houses had become dark and empty in tombstone testament to the fatal demands of the war. The noble families’ offspring, male and female alike, had marched off in their shiny ranks to win themselves glorious deaths, and left no one to whom the families could leave their wealth. The parties had gradually tailed off, bereft parents finding it too painful to listen to happy or sad songs anymore. Music had not simply fallen out of fashion – it had died on the battlefield with the youth of Corinus.
Lucius looked down at his hands, which had once been as fragile and graceful as birds but had now thickened with the manual work he did everyday. If he remembered rightly, an infatuated noble’s daughter had written a poem to his hands, but where he had once had strings beneath the ends of his fingernails, he now had the blackened red of old blood from hauling corpses into the vaulted caverns beneath the palace.
When he had no longer been able to earn a living through music, it had looked like he and his mother wouldn’t be able to keep a roof over their heads, but an old family friend had managed to get Lucius a lowly position in the palace… literally low, for he worked under it. He had turned up for his first day of work in his smartest suit of clothes and had been horrified to discover he was expected to work carrying the bodies of dead soldiers into the royal crypts. But they had given him an apron and partly paid him with precious off-cuts of meat from the royal kitchens (or at least that was where they said the meat came from). Once he’d gotten over his initial distaste of handling the dead, he found he took a measure of pride in ferrying war heroes to their final resting place, secure crypts where they could not be tampered with by the barbaric outdwellers. It was appropriate reward that those who had fought for the Crown in life should be protected by the same Crown and kept free of desecration in death. He’d even taken to laying out the bodies respectfully in neat rows rather than dumping them in piles, which had irritated his partner, Kal, who had just wanted to the work done as quickly as possible, but the rows had pleased the overseer, who had reported that the King himself had commented upon it. Lucius had never met the King, of course, but knew His Majesty came to the crypts from time to time to honour the dead, which meant Lucius took even greater pride in his work since it was reviewed by the King.
Lucius knew Kal didn’t like him, but also knew Kal was too slow-witted to understand the importance of their work. When Lucius had spied Kal stealing trinkets from the dead and had reported it to the overseer, Kal had flown into a rage, until it was explained to him that they would have higher wages on condition they didn’t steal from the dead anymore. The overseer now personally searched all the bodies before they were interred, so that a proper account could be kept and so that the overseer could remove any particular valuables that might serve as mementos for surviving families and relatives.
Lucius and Kal stood atop the last two wagon loads of bodies to come from the battlefield that day. Despite the coldness of the weather, there were still flies aplenty to bother them as they rolled one body after another to the ground. Lucius had long since become used to the smell, even though his mother still complained he stank of death when he came home.
It was a shame that the wagons were not of the tilting kind that made unloading easier, but such vehicles were more expensive and monopolised by the merchants, who ke
pt the city going with what they brought in from the countryside. Lucius didn’t really mind the extra work required of him by the type of wagon he now stood on; he just didn’t like having to see and hear the dead bodies get damaged by the drop to the ground unloading from this height necessitated. In the early days, Lucius had persuaded Kal to try passing bodies down to him from the wagons, but there was nothing as heavy and awkward as the articulated dead weight of a human corpse, so they’d given that up.
Getting the bodies down the stairs of the crypt, however, was a different matter. There was a tight bend to the left in fairly narrow staircase, so that they’d found that it was actually easier if the two of them carried one body between them, one at the head, one at the feet. Tipping a body down the stone steps inevitably didn’t work because it would get wedged in the turning and they’d have a devil of a time dragging it free. Kal’s technique of dragging bodies after him was slightly more effective, but too often they’d tumble down on top of the bearer and the leaking brain juice would leave a slippery mess on the stairs, which would make the bearer’s next trip more hazardous.
Far better was one body between two, and that way the bodies suffered no further injury. Now, the bodies could be laid out with a certain gentleness and reverence, if not ceremony, and arranged so that they had a composed dignity in death. Kal obviously didn’t take as much care as Lucius, but they worked well as a team: Kal’s impressive brawn shouldering a greater part of the physical labour and Lucius’s quick wits spotting and avoiding obstacles for them.
It was almost dark before they got the last body down into the crypt. Kal was rushing, as he always did at this sort of time, his appetite pushing all other thought from his head.
‘Oof! Right, Kal, you be off and I’ll finish here and lock up. See you tomorrow!’
Kal grunted at him in a low pitch, which was thanks and good night rolled into one. A medium pitch was simply good night or hello, depending on the time of day. Lucius nodded and watched the simple oaf leave for his dinner. Apparently, there were new girls in from the countryside working at the Ribald Priest, which might also explain Kal’s urgency.
Women didn’t hold much interest for Lucius anymore. There had been a time when they were romantic ideals, to be sung about in epitragic ballads. They had been objects of physical and spiritual beauty, to inspire knights to acts of bravery and break the hearts of sighing youths. They had been muse, prize and divine mystery. But there was no mystery now that he had seen and carried the bodies of devastated female soldiers. He’d hauled dismembered, naked (how they’d become naked, he had no idea), pierced, flayed, crushed and battered corpses of every shape and size.
He’d become entirely desensitised to flesh and death, to the extent that he sometimes feared he was losing all feeling himself, that working with the dead was somehow leeching the life from him. What kept such irrational ideas at bay – and was probably the salvation of his sanity – was his understanding of and focus on the fact that a person was of course more than mere flesh and bone. A person was most importantly the magic of personality and life. It was that magic that held both interest and mystery for him. And it was in this regard that women, and men, held fascination for him.
He sought them out in the taverns from time to time and was content simply to sit amongst them as they drank, jested and sorrowed. Occasionally, new songs coalesced seemingly of their own accord in his mind as he let the sights and sounds of human existence was around and through him. The patrons of the various taverns of Corinus had avoided him at first because they’d heard about what his job involved and thought that bad luck or contagion hovered around him. Some had threatened him darkly for even looking at them, making signs against the evil eye, but the solid muscle he’d put on his tall frame while doing his job dissuaded most from physical confrontation. Besides, there was a story going round that holy Lacrimos worked invisibly next to Lucius – and nobody wanted to fight the Keeper, did they?
They’d avoided him at first, but his quiet, softly spoken ways had earned him some measure of acceptance. The fact that he always seemed to have a few coins to stand someone down on their luck a drink also helped. One night he’d been heard singing gently – he hadn’t realised he was doing it – and they’d demanded he stand up and give them all a chorus. He’d sung a ballad about a soldier whose love had been turned into a sword by a wicked, jealous witch. The soldier carried the blade with him into battle and it defended him against all harm. The soldier won every battle he joined and finally the war was won. There was no enemy left to fight and the soldier was his country’s most glorious hero. But the war was done, the soldier no longer had a purpose and he no longer had cause to draw his beloved sword or even carry it at his waist. The blade of the sword lost its shine and edge, so that when the soldier remembered his love and brought it forth to look upon, he knew that he would have to use it one more time or see it lose its entire worth as a sword. He fell upon the blade and, as he died, finally found a happiness greater than he had ever known.
The tavern had fallen silent as he sang and remained so when he finished. He should have known better than to sing the sort of epic poetry only the nobility usually heard! He began to stammer an apology to the crowd but then they’d broken into insane cheering and applause. They slapped his back, bought him drinks and told him they’d never realised. The next night, they demanded he sing again, and the next, and the next. He was something of a minor celebrity in Corinus and was dubbed the Singing Hauler. It didn’t entirely make sense to him, but at least he had rediscovered his music. It made him feel alive even if he couldn’t make a living from it.
The door at the top of the stairs clanged, the noise reverberating around the crypt. A voice drifted down to him.
‘Mind these steps, my dear, they are a little steep. The light’s not so good here but torched are kept permanently lit down in the crypt in case I should visit. We won’t be disturbed, although I’ll have to have a word with the overseer for leaving the door unlocked.’
Instinctively, Lucius drew back into the shadows against one of the walls, knowing that the likes of him was not meant to come into the presence of the King! For a moment, he considered stepping forwards and announcing himself, but he found he lacked the courage to intrude so deliberately. If he just crouched lower and trusted the flickering torches and dancing shadows to mask his slight movements, then maybe the King and His companion would pass by and never be troubled. Then, Lucius could slip away behind them and be on his way.
‘The shifting light makes it look like they’re already awake and starting to move,’ throbbed a quiet voice all round the crypt.
King Voltar of Dur Memnos came into view, and at His side was the most aesthetically beautiful woman Lucius had ever seen. She seemed to float her movements were so gentle. Dressed in white and with skin as pale as snow, Lucius had to wonder if in fact she was a ghost or spirit. Awake already, what did that mean?
The couple stopped short of Lucius’s hiding place and stood in apparent contemplation of a youth who had clearly come from a poorer family. His uniform wasn’t quite the right colour and was ill-fitting. His chest was cut to ribbons – it seemed that he had been sold sub-standard leather armour that wasn’t properly toughened.
‘Let’s start with an easy one – limbs and head still attached and he’s unbaptised. Okay, heal the chest, cell by cell, vessel by vessel, inch by inch. Now the organs that have decayed. That’s it. Regenerate the blood – bit trickier, but we’re there. The brain, gently, gently, done! Wait a second.’
Lucius didn’t dare blink. He stared fixedly at the youth he’d laid out himself. The youth was dead, he was sure of it. The body had lost so much blood that it couldn’t have a drop left in it. The skin was the chalky blue of death and fine china. There was no mistaking it. And the flesh was torpid, so that it remained indented when pressed.
He watched the outline of the youth’s chest and willed it not to rise or fall. The eyelids could not be fluttering. Surely it
was a breeze that stirred the lashes. They could not be moving, because if they were moving that meant… that meant the King was… was a necromancer! It could not be! Everyone knew that the King hunted down all necromancers and had them executed because their crimes were an offence to all the gods. The undead were an abomination, they…
Wait! That was movement. The corpse spasmed and arched its back, a rattling breath lifting its chest. The King stepped back as the youth sat up and spat old, black blood clear of his throat.
‘Where am I?’ came the hoarse enquiry.
‘Back in Corinus. You were injured and I have made you whole again. After all, a King should do all in His power to protect and help His subjects. Do you remember your name and what happened to you?’
There was a slow blink. ‘Jaspar. I was fighting on a terrible battlefield, but it’s fading now. There were monsters or… no, I forget. Did we win?’
‘Yes, and your King and country are grateful. That is why I have worked so hard to return your health and strength to you.’
‘Thank you, Sire. I owe you my life.’
‘You may return to your barracks, Jaspar.’
‘Yes, Sire! Thank you, Sire!’
The youth clambered to his feet and walked woodenly towards the stairs, his gait becoming less jerky and more natural with each step.
Voltar turned back to His companion. ‘There! A relatively simple matter and one more soldier, or one more step, towards our goal. If he had been baptised, we could have made the body hail, but the spirit would not have been able to return to it. Then we would have had a simple creature on our hands that needed to learn everything all over again like a child, but a child with virtually no character except for the base appetites arising from the body. Fortunately, there are not so many of the baptised anymore. When I do get one, I develop it to its full genetic potential and it is useful as a gargantuan guard and or belligerent warden.