by Karen Kincy
“But believe me,” he said, “that’s a fraction of the hatred archmages have for us.”
“Is Konstantin your enemy?” she said.
“Konstantin? Is that his name?”
She nodded.
Wendel let himself fall back on the berth. “Perhaps all this blood loss is a good thing. It will make me that much harder to find.”
Ardis made an impatient noise. “Why?”
“My magic is very weak now,” he muttered. “But that won’t stop Konstantin if he blunders too near to me. I should lie low until we arrive in Vienna. Hell, why did that bastard have to take the same train?”
“What happens if he finds you?” she said.
But Wendel didn’t reply, a distant look in his eyes.
“Great,” she said, “two days on a train with a necromancer and an archmage. And I don’t even know why you hate him so much.”
He looked at her, finally, and there was a strange questioning look in his eyes.
“There is a lot to tell you,” he said, “that I would rather not.”
~
The train rattled further into the forest and deeper into the gathering night. Ardis rested in her berth with her pillow against the wall, watching Wendel sleep. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he had tossed off his blankets despite the chilly air. She wondered if he felt feverish. His skin looked ghostly in the weak moonlight.
Ardis rolled over in her berth and stared at the ceiling.
In the back of her mind, a thought lingered like a primitive fear. Don’t close your eyes with a necromancer so near. She knew too little about Wendel, and she never liked the unknown. She should question him in the morning.
Although she had liked their earlier banter.
Damn, had she been alone for so long? Was she that desperate for camaraderie? Sometimes, on her missions, she had gone for days without speaking to another soul. It scared her. Like being a mercenary had made her less human, but she hadn’t noticed until now. Until the necromancer.
Exhaustion muddled her thoughts, and her eyelids drifted lower.
“Ardis.”
There was a great lurch, and a screeching that hurt her ears.
“Ardis!”
She opened her eyes and jolted upright. Wendel stood by the window, a handful of curtains clenched in his hand, and stared outside at the gray forest. Then she identified the screeching as the brakes of the train.
“Why are we stopping?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
Ardis leapt out of her berth and yanked on her jacket. The train shuddered, and she stumbled toward Wendel. He caught her by the arm to steady her. Momentum swung her against him, and her shoulder hit him in the chest.
“Sorry!” she said.
He released her and backed away. “I’ll live.”
Ardis hadn’t meant to be so clumsy, or to sound so concerned. But judging by the roughness in his voice, she had hurt him.
“What’s happening outside?” she said.
Wendel looked back out the window, one hand pressed above his bandage. “We must have found one of the holes in the Hex.”
“Holes?” she said. “I thought those didn’t exist.”
He looked at her with a thin smile. “Ah, but I heard gunshots.”
There was a definite note of satisfaction in his voice, like he was pleased that the magic of the archmages had failed in this area.
“Get dressed,” she said. “We’re going outside.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said sardonically.
Ardis tugged on a pair of trousers and yanked on her boots, then grabbed Chun Yi and hurried out the door. She glanced back and saw Wendel slipping that strange black dagger of his into the pocket of his borrowed long coat.
In the hallway, a conductor stopped them. “Ma’am, sir, there’s no cause for alarm.”
“Gunshots?” Wendel said, and he sounded gleeful.
“I’m a mercenary with the archmages,” Ardis said, “and it sounds like there’s been a problem with the Hex here. Let me take a look.”
The conductor hesitated, then nodded and stepped out of their way.
“Impressive,” Wendel said. “You pull off the voice of authority thing well.”
Ardis marched down the hallway and entered the swaying passageway between cars. She slid open the door and walked onto the narrow steel platform just as the train chugged to a halt, hissing and puffing diesel smoke.
Beside her, Wendel leaned over the railing. “So that’s why we stopped.”
Ardis peered into the darkness and saw a truck illuminated in the headlights of the train. It was parked directly across the tracks. A scattering of people stood around the truck, the unmistakable silhouettes of guns in their hands. The beams of their flashlights and lanterns crisscrossed the chilly fog.
“Rebels,” Ardis said. “Do they think they can hijack this train?”
“Apparently,” Wendel said. “There are a lot of wealthy passengers.”
Her stomach squirmed. “And the archmage.”
“Oh?” He gave her a look. “Don’t tell me you plan to protect him from those—”
“We are,” she said. “You work for me now, remember? And you better be good for a fight, because it looks like they want one.”
He sighed a long-suffering sigh. “Whatever you say.”
One of the conductors hopped off the train and landed in the snow. He approached the rebels with his hands held high. His words were unintelligible to Ardis. The rebels aimed their lights at the conductor’s face. Then their guns.
“What is he doing?” she muttered.
“Negotiating?” Wendel suggested.
“I count seven rebels. And it looks like all of them have guns.”
“Seven?” The necromancer shrugged. “Just signal when you plan to attack them.”
“What do you propose?” She stared sideways at him. “Show ourselves and get shot?”
“Who said anything about showing ourselves?”
There was a shout, and a gunshot cracked in the night. The conductor crumpled in the snow, his blood widening beneath him.
“That sounds like a signal to me,” Wendel said.
Before Ardis could reply, he leapt over the railing and hit the ground running. He loped across the snow, straight into the darkness of the trees. Ardis unsheathed Chun Yi and jumped after him. Her boots fractured the hard crust of ice on the snow, and she dropped into a crouch, but the rebels didn’t seem to hear her.
The rebels were walking nearer, though, along the length of the train.
Wendel reached into his coat and drew the black dagger. With a hissing whisper, tendrils of smoke crawled from Amarant and curled around his arm, his body, his face. His outline faded to nothing more than a shadow.
Ardis’s breath snagged in her throat. She had never seen such dark magic.
Nearly invisible, the necromancer stole along the edge of the trees. She lost sight of him, and followed the creation of his footprints in the snow. He circled around behind the rebels and crept nearer through the forest.
What was he doing? Did he think he could outmatch seven men with guns?
Ardis tightened her grip on Chun Yi and readied herself to fight—or to flee, if the rebels came too close to cornering her. Flashlights swung toward her, and she pressed against the train, holding her breath so it wouldn’t steam the air.
Wendel crouched beneath a tree, lurking behind a rebel man with two pistols. The rebel turned his head. In one sweeping lunge, Wendel smothered his mouth and slit his throat. Blood spurted from the rebel’s neck, and he collapsed in the snow. Wendel dropped, never lifting his hand from the rebel’s mouth.
Shadows from the black dagger swarmed thick and dark over the necromancer’s skin.
At last, he raised his hand. And he raised the dead man with it.
The corpse staggered to his feet, blood slicking his chest, his limbs not yet stiff. His pistols thudded in the snow. The necromancer snatched both guns, then retr
eated into the shadows. The dead man stood waiting.
Ardis’s heart beat hard and fast in her ribcage. She lost sight of Wendel in the darkness.
The rebel captain’s shout sliced the clear night. He spoke Romanian. Ardis’s mind whirred as she translated the words.
“Search the train,” the captain said. “Take no prisoners.”
Then perhaps they didn’t know about Konstantin, and only wanted to send a message to Austria-Hungary at the cost of innocent lives.
“Ardis.”
She heard Wendel’s hushed voice, and his footsteps behind her. She turned to see the shadow-cloaked necromancer near enough to touch.
“Are you a good shot?” he said.
“I’m American, remember?” she said.
The unnatural shadows gave his smile a sinister beauty. He tossed her a pistol. She caught it, then sheathed Chun Yi.
“Only six rebels left,” Wendel said, “now that one of them is mine.”
Ardis grimaced. She supposed it was efficient, turning your defeated enemies into temporary allies, but it soured her stomach.
“We’re still outnumbered,” she said.
“They won’t see us if you stay close to me.”
She eyed Amarant warily. “How close?”
Before he could reply, a rebel raised a lantern in the face of the dead man. Light revealed red on white, blood dripping into snow.
The rebel stumbled back. “Captain! Luca is hurt!”
Wendel let out his breath in a slow hiss.
The dead man—Luca—swung his arm at the rebel, caught him off guard, and knocked him off his feet. The rebel flew back, skidding across the snow, and the lantern flickered out. The five other rebels ran to his side.
“Keep back,” their captain commanded. “Luca isn’t hurt. He’s dead. Walking dead.”
Ardis glanced at Wendel, and saw his eyes narrow into slits.
Luca swayed on his feet, then charged the rebel captain. Three gunshots to the chest didn’t stop the undead man. He plowed onward as the rebels shouted and scrambled out of his way. At last the captain had the idea to unsheathe a brutish saber. Without ceremony, he severed Luca’s spine.
The dead man thudded on the ground and was silent.
“Necromancy,” said the captain.
Ardis looked back at Wendel. Sweat dotted his brow.
“Don’t overdo it,” she whispered. “You’re wounded.”
“I won’t,” he whispered back.
She felt the heft of the pistol in her hand and judged the distance to the rebels. They clustered together now, watching the shadows, their guns cocked and loaded. She wasn’t sure that killing Luca had been a good idea.
“Take out as many as you can,” she said. “When they return fire, we take cover.”
Wendel nodded and swapped his dagger and his pistol in his hands. The shadows hiding him swirled like storm clouds.
“After you,” he said.
Ardis leaned out from behind the train, her pistol raised, and sighted down the barrel. She aimed for the captain’s head.
A thought flashed in her mind. It had been a year since she had fired a gun. How strange.
She squeezed the trigger.
Her shot went wide, hitting the captain in his shoulder, but it was enough to stagger him. Wendel shot twice. A miss, then a crippling hit. The remaining five rebels returned fire. Bullets ricocheted off the sides of the train and buried into tree bark. Ardis dove into the snow and crawled under the train.
Wendel slid in after her, and dropped his gun.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“Take my hand,” he said. “Trust me.”
Ardis wasn’t sure she did, but she took the chance and grabbed his right hand.
Shadows crawled from his skin to hers and slithered over her body. They felt like icy fire. The shadows covered her face, and she gasped, claustrophobic for a second. Her vision rippled before returning grayer than before.
She stared at her hands. They were all but invisible.
The rebels ran toward them, their boots kicking up bloody snow.
“Find them!” their captain shouted.
“Don’t let go,” Ardis whispered.
Wendel’s hand tightened on hers. “I won’t.”
Flashlights shone under the train, just to the right of their hiding place, then swept closer. Ardis climbed out on the other side and tugged Wendel after her. She ran along the side of the train and peeked between the cars.
A rebel stared in her direction. His gaze slid right over her.
Ardis raised her gun and shot him square in the chest. Before he even had time to fall, she was running again with Wendel at her side.
Four rebels left. Including the captain, if he wasn’t too wounded to fight.
“Slow down,” Wendel panted. “Too much noise.”
“A little late for that,” she said.
Ardis darted between the cars, found a rebel, and fired. But her pistol jammed. She tossed it aside and unsheathed Chun Yi. The rebel fired his rifle, missing wildly, and she dropped Wendel’s hand a split second before she attacked.
Shadows vanished from Ardis, and she saw the whites of the rebel’s eyes.
Then she drove Chun Yi into his heart and kicked the rifle from his hands. Wendel swooped in and, with a kind of macabre grace, touched the man as he died. The rebel never hit the ground, and he never breathed again.
Ardis saw the life flicker from the man’s eyes, replaced by the flat gleam of death.
“Attack them,” Wendel told his minion.
And the undead man did as he said. He advanced at a shambling run and turned on his former comrades. The captain hacked at him with his saber, but he was weak, and it took several swings before he felled the undead.
Three rebels left. And they had started to panic.
“Find the necromancer!”
“I don’t see him anywhere, Captain.”
“God, do you hear the crows?”
The whooshing of wings and caws foretold the arrival of the sleek black birds. A murder of crows perched in the trees. At their center stood the necromancer. He stepped forward, sheathed his dagger, and revealed himself.
The rebels crossed themselves and gibbered prayers. Their captain stared at Wendel, transfixed, like a mouse before a viper.
Ardis seized the moment by raising her bloody sword.
“Run,” she said in broken Romanian, “or we will kill you all.”
Standing beside her, Wendel spread his arms. “And I will bring you back.”
The rebels fled to their truck. They leapt inside the cab, gunned the engine, and roared off the railroad. Slush sprayed beneath the tires. The truck fishtailed and careened until it found the gravel road, then sped into the night.
Ardis looked to Wendel. “That worked.”
He smiled at her, and then she realized he was shaking.
“I was bluffing,” he said.
Wendel walked back to the train, slowly, his breathing harsh. Crows wheeled overhead, circling the necromancer. The sulfuric tang of gunpowder lingered in the air. Ardis wiped Chun Yi in the snow before she followed him.
“So many crows,” she said. “I wonder why.”
He looked sideways at her. “You haven’t heard the stories? Crows are an omen of evil. When you see them, death isn’t far behind.”
“I’m not from here,” she said, “remember?”
“The stories are true.”
“Necromancers are evil?” she deadpanned.
“Don’t you wish you knew?” He snorted. “The crows can sense my necromancy, and they know I leave bodies behind.”
She glanced at the fallen lying in the snow. “We should bury them.”
Wendel braced himself on the side of the train. He leaned his forehead against the cold steel of the train and let out a shuddering breath.
“Damn birds,” he said. “If it were up to me, I would choose a quieter omen.”
Ardis didn’t know
how much strength he had lost by using his magic, but she knew it wasn’t a good idea to linger too long in the cold.
“Wendel,” she said.
“Give me a minute,” he said. “Let me catch my breath.”
There was the squeak of hinges and a metallic scraping. All the crows took flight and whirled overhead, cawing. A man walked onto the train platform. He scanned the surroundings, then looked down. His stare latched onto Wendel.
Konstantin.
The archmage stared at the necromancer, and their eyes met.
Any trace of pain or fatigue vanished from Wendel’s face, replaced by a look of pure disdain. He stood straight and dusted off his hands.
“Where were you, archmage?” he said. “Sleeping? Did you have sweet dreams?”
Konstantin’s shoulders tensed, and Ardis stepped between the two of them. She suspected things could get ugly fast if Wendel kept talking.
“Ardis,” the archmage said, “move away from that—that necromancer.”
He muttered the word as if it wasn’t meant for a lady to hear. But Ardis wasn’t a lady.
“He’s with me,” she said.
Konstantin thinned his lips.
“Last time I looked,” he said, “the archmages did not employ his kind as mercenaries. Necromancers are too… volatile.”
Ardis clenched her jaw. “He swore fealty to me, so I can’t get rid of him.”
“Get rid of me?” Wendel shot her a sideways glance. “How flattering. Though I do like the sound of ‘volatile,’ archmage. How about we—?”
“Wendel,” Ardis said. “Enough.”
The necromancer swept his arm into a parody of a bow and stepped back.
“I see.” Konstantin’s mouth thinned. “You trained him like an obedient dog.”
Wendel laughed, though it was entirely devoid of humor. “You should know. I have a feeling your mother was a real—”
“Wendel!” Ardis silenced him with a glare. “We’re not here to pick a fight. We barely got out of the last one alive.”
He shrugged. “The guns did add an element of challenge to the battle.”
Konstantin’s cheeks flushed slightly. “A minor imperfection in the Hex. A structural repair of the underlying magic shouldn’t take me more than an hour to implement. In fact, I should start work on that immediately.”