by A J Dalton
Innius tapped his foot impatiently. The size Siddorax had swollen himself up to, he would never be able to catch the mouse-quick necromancer, not without knocking over the throne and fatally injuring the fragile King. Innius decided he would have to take a hand and began to roll up his sleeves. He started to speak the words of a deathspell, words that drove most mortals mad just to hear them.
His voice rose in power and volume and the temperature in the room plunged. He could see his own breath now. The spell was all but complete. The last syllable was on his lips when the door behind him burst open violently and hit him in the back of the head. He shrieked in shock and outrage, and then pain as the spell began to turn in on itself. Curse the weakness of this body that he could so easily be laid low! He gritted his teeth as hard as he could, not caring that enamel was chipped and ground away as he did so. He hung onto consciousness and steadied himself against the wall.
A bestial challenge was bellowed from the doorway and a titan climbed into the room. It was even bigger than Siddorax, but had the ranginess of a hunter and jaws that crunched through bone while the demon had the shoulders and deep chest of a brawler who hefted weapons and smashed heads.
'Necro-man belong to Brax! You not touch!' the titan shouted terribly.
Siddorax turned to meet the new threat and roared his own challenge. The two juggernauts crashed together and shook the room, neither Innius or Mordius able to keep their feet. Siddorax had the titan in a bear-hug that would either snap his in two or grind his bones to dust, if not both. Brax wrestled higher in the demon's grip and then lowered his huge jaws around one side of the demon's neck and half way round the back. Everyone in the room heard the crunch as the jaws came together and locked. Brax shook his head from side to side, just as a dog seeks to break a rabbit's neck.
Siddorax shuddered and fell to one knee. As Brax loosened his jaws slightly to find the killing grip at the back of the neck, the demon jerked free suddenly and vanished.
There was a moment's shocked silence. 'He's gone!' Mordius said.
'No, he's still here!' Brax said sniffing the air.
They felt the air move and a massive, invisible blow snapped Brax's head back. His feet back-pedalled, but could not stop his backward momentum. He tumbled and the back of his head received another sickening blow against the wall. Mordius skipped to the side, looking around at the air wildly for some clue as to where the next attack might come from. Brax was still moving, but was slow and groggy. Supine and vulnerable as he was, the next blow was likely to be the last.
Saltar knew he had to create a distraction. He yanked the pole arm out through his chest and cast it the widest gap in the room. He was rewarded with a roar of anger as the pole arm hit something and two inches of its point disappeared. The weapon was wrenched free and tossed aside.
Then Saltar ran at Innius. The priest's eyes widened in alarm and he snapped out a few curt words. Saltar's limbs lost their impetus and began to stiffen. It was as if he was trapped in ice. He couldn't move an inch.
'Do you really think one of the dead can threaten me, he who is the right hand of Lacrimos? How dare you! You must learn your place. I will return you to my lord's realm and personally oversee your torture. You disgust me, all of you!' Innius squawked like an angry crow. 'To think that you, Balthagar, tried to lay your hands on me, your rotting flesh close to leaving its stink on my own. And you, Siddorax, with your vulgar, physical display, splattering blood and other humours everywhere. Brax, is it, with all the behaviour of a mangy dog foaming at the mouth and fighting over a bone. And let us not forget Mordius who is so scared that he shits and pisses all over the place. The human species is grotesque. It revels in its own organic discharges, bathes in its own bodily fluids, turns the very fact of its physical body into a fetish, with contaminating prods, pokes, probings, insertions and penetrations. The gods can feel nothing but nausea and revulsion when their gaze beholds you. And even then, their gaze is sullied by you. And you do not stop there. No! You seek to drag the gods down into the mud with you, down into the filth created by your own putrid anuses. In your laziness and self-indulgence, you seek to make the gods like yourselves rather than trying to make yourselves like the gods. Your malformed egos are nothing more than aborted foetuses trying to stand shoulder to shoulder with the fully-formed and glorious gods.'
'Try getting out more,' Mordius said.
'Silence! How dare you interrupt me, you worm! I speak the holy word of Lacrimos, the word of a god who perceives the pathetic and grasping nature of humanity and is reviled by it. It is the will of Lacrimos that you all die!'
Innius started to chant his deathspell once more, and this time there was nothing to stop it. Black oil trickled from his hands and began to pool in the air. It flowed towards them, slowly at first, but then running faster and faster. Quickly, the liquid death was a torrent pouring towards them. Saltar was drenched in it first, but as one of the dead he was unaffected, although he remained frozen in place. Next to be drowned was Brax, and he disappeared completely under the black tide. Mordius jumped backwards, not daring to get even a foot wet.
The oil washed up to the walls on either side of the room and outlined Siddorax.
'Master!' yelled the demon, clearly in difficulty against the spell.
'You have outlasted your usefulness, Siddorax. You have abused the opportunity I gave you. You have wasted the body of Gerault that I allowed you. You should be thanking me, not pleading for even more of my beneficence!'
As the demon howled, Mordius ran for the King and crouched as close to him as he could, praying that Innius would not want to risk the spell coming anywhere near the royal personage. Thankfully, the progress of the black stuff did slow. It's movement became sluggish, but even so it crept inexorably onwards.
'The slightest of touches is all that's required,' Innius called. 'Come, Mordius, it will be a relief really. No more having to be confined by your feeble body, no more having to accede to its needs, urges and whims. I envy you in many ways, you know. If I did not have to remain to see to the fulfilment of my master's will, then nothing could hold me here.'
There was nothing but swirling darkness surrounding Mordius now. He couldn't see anything beyond the small patch of moonlight around the throne and in which he crouched. A tendril of black reached towards him. He ducked under it, but another was already forming and sensing its way towards him.
In the distance, there was a roar that sounded like Brax.
'You should be dead!' Innius was heard to say.
'He is not of Shakri's making,' explained a new voice with a strange edge to it.
'What is this? A priest of Shakri, here? And who are - ? No!'
The darkness gradually dissipated, to reveal a stricken Innius with a length of sword sticking out of his back. A hard-bitten warrior pulled the blade free of the priest's torso, waited for him to fall and then wiped his sword matter-of-factly on the priest's robes. There was also a man in white robes present, whose gaze was fixed on Brax and who had begun to move towards him.
'Nostracles, no!' barked the warrior, but the white robe ignored him.
Brax scented the approach of the white robe and smiled. 'Little man!'
A dagger magically appeared in Nostracles's hand and he plunged it with grief-driven hatred into the Warden's heart. There were tears in Nostracles's eyes as he made the fatal strike, but even in death Brax's strength was greater than that of a normal man. With a loose hand Brax swiped at Nostracles's head, twisting it round and breaking the neck instantly. The pair fell where they were, their limbs intertwined in death as their paths and actions had been in life.
The warrior sighed and shook his head. 'What a waste! I hope you're satisfied now, goddess!'
'Nostracles! Noo!' came a distraught cry from the door and a young warrior ran to the ex-priest's side. The young warrior began to sob.
Then, a female in green leathers appeared, holding a tousle-haired man, who was in naught but his small clothes, by the scruf
f of his neck. The fellow had obviously just been pulled from his bed.
'Kate!' Saltar and Mordius said together.
The older warrior's eyes went to Saltar and the betraying wound through the animee's torso. 'You!' He raised his sword. A green chip of jade near one of his eyes began to shine.
'Wait, Guardian! There is still another threat here,' Saltar told him. 'An invisible one!'
The Guardian hawked and spat. 'Time to finish this zombie.' He took a purposeful step towards the centre of the room.
'I will not allow this!' Kate said shrilly, lifting her crossbow and aiming at her commander's back. 'I will shoot, be sure of that Scourge!'
The Scourge did not turn back to her, but said in a curiously hollow voice, 'So this is how it falls out, Kate? Do you remember our conversation about there being a reckoning and a testing? I asked you if you would stand for me. I guess I have my answer now. Well, child, you will have to do as you have to, as will I?'
The Scourge planted his feet, swished his sword through the air a few times to be sure he was unencumbered in any way and then lunged for the space to his right, the jade at his eye winking bewitchingly. His blade seemed to meet some resistance there and he put his weight behind it.
There was a disembodied scream of confusion and pain from the area where the Scourge played out his bizarre pantomime. Kate and Young Strap moved back uncertainly. The Scourge was knocked to the floor brutally, his sword falling with him and exhibiting a peculiar inertia.
The Scourge wiped blood from his mouth and looked up at Kate ferociously. 'Decide now and shoot!' The Scourge's body suddenly shook and his hands went to his chest in obvious pain. Fresh blood coughed up onto his lips.
Kate gazed at the space the Scourge had attacked. She couldn't see anything. Her crossbow was pointed at the space, but on the other side of it stood Saltar. The bolt was aimed straight at his head. She let her weapon waver and drift down towards the Scourge.
'Kate!' Saltar said sharply. Her gaze came straight back to him and he nodded at her with command.
She pulled the trigger and watched in agony as the bolt speared through the air. Time seemed to stop. Her eyes were locked on his. There was a death and emptiness there that blew across her soul like a cold wind. But there was something else there: a lost spark spiralling in an infinite void. He was lost, but that spark was something she could head towards so that she wouldn't be alone in that same void. And she'd sent a bolt at his head! It would punch through his skull and do untold damage within. As one of the undead, he would survive the impact, but his mind would be destroyed by the cruel and piercing metal. Then, he would be the sort of shambling horror that could attack those who had once been accounted his friends and loved ones. He would be the sort of horror that the Guardians existed to destroy. She would have to see to the destruction of the man she loved! Curse the Scourge that he had forced her to this! She resolved he would be the next to die. And then she would kill herself to join her beloved in the nether realm of Lacrimos.
Kate blinked. The bolt had stopped dead in midair. For a second, nothing happened, and then a shadow began to thicken around the bolt. A wide, grotesquely muscled guard appeared with the bolt protruding from his forehead. He toppled to the floor with a thud and the crack of a breaking nose. A thin shade detached itself from the body and disappeared into the floor, wailing like a banshee.
'By Shakri's holy creation, what was that?' Young Strap asked.
'A demon called Siddorax,' Saltar said, 'summoned by the dark priest Innius over there.'
'Poor Innius!' sighed the scantily clad man Kate had dragged into the throne room. Everyone looked at him as he shook his head at the scene. 'You've turned this place into a slaughterhouse. They'll never get all the blood off the stones.'
'Who are you, the royal decorator?' the Scourge enquired as he used his sword as a crutch to push himself back onto his feet. 'Actually, I don't much care who you are. There's more blood to come. The whole room will be painted by the time I'm done.'
The man backed away with fear evident in his eyes. He glanced at the open doorway to be sure it was unguarded. Kate moved to stand between the Scourge and Saltar. She slung her empty crossbow over her shoulder and rested a hand on the hilt of her long knife. She eyeballed her commander tensely. They all watched each other, daring each other to make a move.
'Let's all just calm down,' Mordius ventured. 'Before we end up making this tragedy worse than it already is.'
'Please, Scourge,' Young Strap said, tiredness and grief heavy in his voice. 'There's no need for this. We've already lost Nostracles. Isn't that enough?'
The Scourge pointed at the unknown man. 'You take a single step towards that door and I'll gut you to piss on your entrails while you're still breathing. You understand me?'
The man rooted himself to the spot. He nodded in terror, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
'As for you two,' the Scourge shouted at Kate and Young Strap, 'you are a disgrace! You cannot take an oath and then only do your duty if it is convenient for you! You are forsworn before comrades, the King and the gods! You are asking for mercy for a craven necromancer and his rotten animee. Are you insane? Allow that and where does it end? The necromancers will run riot. No one will be safe, in life or death. Mother and father will be turned against child. It's unnatural! Families will be destroyed, hamlets, villages, towns and cities. There will be nothing left. Nothing! Don't you understand? I can't believe I even have to explain this to you. Cut them down this instant! That's an order!'
Kate's knife whispered from its sheath. Hot tears started down her angled cheeks. Her voice shook, but her hand remained steady: 'I will not. He is mine, Scourge. Please let me have him, or so help me I will fight you. I have never met anyone like him. Do not take him from me. I could not bear it. I will beg if necessary or agree to anything else.'
'He is a corpse! He is already dead! He is already taken from you, you tragic cow, can't you see that?' the Scourge retorted. 'Kate, I care for you, and it is because I care for you that I cannot let this happen.'
'Care for me?' she laughed through her tears. 'You've never cared for anything but your misguided duty and your desire to kill. And you are so very good at killing, aren't you? So good that the entire world has been forced to suffer and understand the same degree of pain as you went through with your parents. But tell me, Scourge, for all the killing, has the anger and pain ever gone away? Has the problem ever lessened? No. And it won't, as long as you keep lashing out at those around you who have only ever wanted to offer you some comfort. And you even lash out at the goddess of all creation, damn you! She wants Saltar and Mordius protected, just as she protects you, but is that good enough for you? Oh, no! Because if you started protecting people instead of killing them, how could you ever make sure they understood your pain? The poor little boy was hurt, so everybody else has to be hurt, is that it? You're jealous of the happiness of others! It's your ego, Scourge! Get over it!'
'I knew it,' the Scourge said in a dangerously quiet voice, his grip tightening on his sword. 'Shakri's got to you, hasn't she? I can see it in your face. She's whispered tantalising thoughts and promises in your ear. The goddess of love has seduced you, Kate, I can see that now. You can never be with Saltar, you must know that, or are you in such denial?'
She couldn't answer him anymore, so adopted a fighting stance. They began to circle each other. Suddenly, Young Strap was at Kate's side, also facing down the Scourge.
'You too, mooncalf?' the Scourge asked with a mixture of disdain and disbelief. 'She's got to you too? What has the goddess offered you? Sugary words and blandishments? Do you so quickly forget your debt to me? Is this the gratitude you show me for having taught you the skills to survive?'
'The white sorceress is imprisoned and needs me to bring Saltar and Mordius to challenge King Voltar,' the youth responded tightly.
'What?' the Scourge hissed. 'Have you lost your mind? Would you commit treason for her?'
'I a
m her champion before I am a Guardian,' Young Strap defied him.
'I see. Then as a King's Guardian I must fight you too, much though it grieves me. I will speak kind words over your grave. I will find blessed water and anoint your body so that it cannot be abused by a necromancer. I can do no more than that.'
'Scourge,' Saltar interpolated without any feeling. 'You cannot hope to prevail against us. You could not prevail against me even if I was alone and unarmed. And you know that Shakri will not allow water blessed by one of her priests to harm me. What weapon is left to you? None. It may sound strange but I understand your antagonism towards Mordius and me. Please believe me when I say that I abhor what I am as much as you do. It is like a waking nightmare. I sense that when I was dead it was like a beautiful sleep. I have been rudely ripped from the sleep, to find that I am now this monster that feels nothing and is empty of human warmth. And I have no real memory of who I was when I was alive. Can you imagine what any of that is like? I have nothing and I am nothing, but I have an awareness of everything I do not have and cannot be. It is the worst of tortures, and now it hurts those around me, people like Kate. In some ways, Scourge, you and I are very much alike.'
'If you abhor being one of the undead so much, then why don't you destroy yourself or, better yet, Mordius?'
'Because Mordius has given me hope that I can be restored to life, that I can reclaim what I was. Other than raising me, Mordius has committed no crime that I know of. He is no danger to you or the people of Dur Memnos. Quite the opposite in fact, since he can restore much of the kingdom if he can but find the necromatic artefact known as the Heart of Harpedon.'
'The Heart?' the half-naked man gasped.
'And what do you know of this?' the Scourge demanded as he rounded on him.
'I... I... it's just that I heard that the Heart was here in Accritania long ago, but that it was stolen by a Memnosian spy and spirited away to Corinus. It is said that it is only because Dur Memnos has the Heart that they are winning the war. And others speculate that the very war itself might have come about because of the Heart,' blurted the man.