Empire of Bones

by Christian Warren Freed

  The flash of light blinded him. He roared in pain. “Be gone from here!”

  He didn’t know who shouted or why. The dread slowly bled away. He could move again. Bahr drew his sword and staggered to his feet. Ragged spots peppered his vision, causing him to stumble and fall to his knees. Bracing himself, Bahr emptied his stomach onto the lush green undergrowth.

  “Bahr, are you injured?”

  He tried to look up only to discover he still couldn’t see. “I’m blind.”

  “That is just a side effect of the magic. Your sight will return shortly.”

  “Anienam?”

  “Yes. It’s me. You’re out of danger now,” the wizard replied soothingly.

  After suffering through a series of dry heaves, Bahr managed to ask, “What was that?”

  “An evil from old times. It was a creation of the dark Mages and their lust for depredation. A Gnaal.”

  “Gnaal?”

  “A demon of immense power,” Anienam explained. “It has a singular purpose once loosed upon the target. I’m afraid we are being hunted.”

  Bahr’s strength gave out and he slumped down. “Will it return tonight? I need to rouse the others. We can’t…”

  “Rest, Captain. I will see to the others. The Gnaal wasn’t expecting to find a wizard so I doubt it will be back soon. There will be time in the morning to formulate a proper action. Now rest, I have work to do.”

  Bahr swooned as darkness claimed him.

  “How do you keep from getting bit?” Nothol asked and frowned at the proud Dwarf captain pushing his way through the thick underbrush like a bull.

  Ironfoot chuckled under his breath. “You clearly don’t know much about Dwarves, lad. We’ve got so much iron in our blood these bugs would die upon biting us! If they could even pierce my skin. Tough as animal hide, it is. We Dwarves are made tough.”

  Jagged patches of sunlight managed to penetrate the increasingly thickening canopy at random, offering light in an otherwise gloomy atmosphere. Humidity levels rose with the sun until many of their group found it unbearable. The undergrowth grew so thick Bahr was forced to have them dismount and go on foot, furthering their misery. The deadly combination of blood-sucking insects and oppressive heat sparked thoughts of turning around less than a day into their journey.

  No one spoke of Bahr’s encounter with the Gnaal. Anienam worked quickly to establish more powerful wards afterwards, and briefed them all at dawn. There wasn’t anything for it, however, and the band was forced to push ahead. The Gnaal would be back once the sun relinquished its hold on the world. They would meet it then and could only push it to the back of their minds in the meantime. Brute strength wasn’t of any use against the dark creature, leaving Anienam their one sole hope of defeating it.

  Nothol slapped at his neck, again, pulling his hand away along with the blood-smeared remains of a dark black mosquito with white bands. He frowned. Rekka was normally taciturn when it came to speaking to the group but she had no qualms discussing the seemingly unending multitudes of diseases and illnesses caused by the bugs of her homeland. Nothol was certain he was going to contract one or more before they reached Trennaron. Sadly, they wouldn’t have time to construct a proper funeral. He’d never be cremated, thus trapping his soul in the soft ground for eternity as bugs and creatures devoured his remains. The prospect didn’t sit well.

  “Rekka, isn’t there something you can do about this? You’re not getting bothered at all,” Nothol begged. His skin had dozens of irritated spots filled with poison from insect bites.

  The salve she’d made earlier was nearly gone and they would need to stop and forage through the jungle to find the proper ingredients. Time they didn’t have. She looked at Dorl’s best friend and slowly shook her head though it hurt her to do so. She and Dorl helped the others with what supplies she had while they lasted but they were dwindling fast. She briefly contemplated using the last of it now but that would only leave them sorely in need later, when they truly needed it. Teng was still days away, perhaps longer given the length of their column.

  “I am sorry, Nothol Coll, but you know I cannot use the last of it without the ability to make more,” she replied.

  He frowned despite already knowing the answer. He just wished it were different. “Rekka, I don’t like your jungle.”

  “I am sure the jungle feels the same about us,” she said glibly. “We are invaders. The jungle will not adapt to us so we must learn to adapt to its ways. Too many outsiders come here without learning that lesson. You will see their skeletons along our path. Brodein is very dangerous and unforgiving.”

  Nothol reserved his opinion, not wanting to insult the swordswoman. He vowed to take his pound of flesh from Dorl once they were safely en route back to Delranan, provided they made it that far. A feat he was beginning to have serious doubts on. He pulled his sweat-soaked jerkin away and fanned it several times. Warm air was better than no air, though he doubted how much longer his body was going to be able to withstand such abuse. He could feel pounds dropping away with every bead of sweat. Making matters worse, Ironfoot trudged on without so much as batting at a fly. Nothol decided he didn’t like the Dwarf either.

  They reached a small stream and took a break. The pace was moderate, often slow due to unforeseen circumstances or natural barriers. Bahr saw no need to push them any further than necessary. Arriving at Teng missing members or wasted away did them little good. He needed everyone and their individual skills. Anienam’s dire warning that their task was going to be much harder than anything they’d experienced thus far left him with an uneasy feeling rumbling around the pit of his stomach.

  Ionascu dropped to his knees at the water’s edge and plunged his face into the running water. He came up laughing madly and scooping handfuls of the cool liquid into his mouth.

  “Don’t drink the water,” Rekka warned. “It is not purified. You will only get sick.”

  “Mind your business, jungle woman. I don’t take orders from the likes of you,” he spat back and continued to drink.

  Bahr abandoned the idea of forcibly stopping him. Ionascu was of little consequence and, truthfully, more trouble than he was worth. Letting the Man get sick would be the least of his concerns. Bahr recognized that losing Ionascu to the jungle wouldn’t be a bad thing, given his duplicitous nature and admitted affiliations with Harnin One Eye, but Anienam insisted the twisted Man still had some part left to play in this great adventure. A quick sword thrust would negate any of that. It was all the sea captain could do to restrain himself.

  He caught the look in Rekka’s eyes and moved to stop her before she stole his glory. “Leave him be, Rekka. He is a bitter shell of what he was, too hardheaded to realize when someone is trying to look out for him. Let him get sick from the water. That’s one less problem I need to worry about. The jungle can have his corpse.”

  She pursed her lips but remained silent. There was truth in Bahr’s words. She’d seen it countless times before. Very few respected Brodein enough to survive it. Instead, she abandoned her anger and said, “The horses may drink, for their bodies work differently than ours. Anyone who drinks from the streams or lakes will grow sick and perhaps perish before we reach Teng.”

  “Dumbass,” Boen grumbled at Ionascu and knocked him into the stream so that his horse could drink.

  Laughter spread through the group at Ionascu’s sputtering as he climbed back to shore. Smaller than Boen by nearly half, Ionascu knew better than to buck up in the Gaimosian’s face. His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits as he plotted his revenge. He knew, or hoped, there’d come a time when Boen’s guard was down. Even the smallest blade could kill.

  Bahr grinned for no other reason than to release some tension but his thoughts never strayed far from the encounter with the Gnaal and that fact that they were being hunted by a creature more powerful than anything they’d come up against yet. The future grew dimmer.

  ELEVEN

  Choices

  “Regardless of your feelin
gs, we are left with the very real problem of being overwhelmed without achieving anywhere near our goals,” Orlek said defiantly.

  Ingrid’s eyes flared with burning anger. “What you propose is abandoning this city! I can’t leave all of these people to Harnin’s subjugation.”

  “I am proposing that we salvage what we can and attack on our terms, not his. Think about it, Ingrid. We aren’t strong anymore. The plague killed almost a quarter of the population. Much of the fight has gone out of the survivors. Delranan is a shell of its former self.”

  Ingrid folded her slender arms across her chest defiantly. “We can change that, Orlek. You and I are the beginning of a new rebellion. One capable of erasing Harnin’s stain from the history keepers. All I am asking for is a little time to implement my designs.”

  “To what ends? How many more need to die before we realize that we’re not ready to fight this war?”

  She paused, taken off guard by his comment. Death had become a constant companion for many of Delranan’s people. “How many deaths would you reduce to meaningless sacrifice? I don’t like the idea that a single person in the rebellion died in vain.”

  “Our choices are running out,” Orlek said. He clenched his fists in frustration and began to circle the small room.

  They’d taken Argis’s body to an abandoned inn in what had been the center of downtown Chadra. Few people bothered to wander the burned-out husks after the plague hit. Not even Harnin’s soldiers ventured to this ruined part of town, giving the pair near complete privacy. Ingrid positioned several squads of rebels in the surrounding buildings on the off chance Harnin did something. Stealing Argis was vital to her cause and Harnin knew it. He’d stop at nothing to reclaim the corpse and end the resurgent tide of rebellion.

  Ingrid sat down, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness. Her legs were tired. Her body sore. She’d been going hard for the last week, ever since the raid to recover the body. More than once Jarrik and his goons swept through Chadra with less than maximum effort. Their zealous behavior combined with lackluster performance while on patrol led her to believe there was a rift between the remaining lords of Delranan. That meant opportunity and Orlek was standing in her way.

  She hadn’t come up through the rebellion ranks to usurp control from Inaella expecting to be stymied at every decision. The plague was damaging beyond measure, to both sides. Harnin was trapped in a corner. hold on the kingdom tenuous at best. All it would take was the slightest breeze to change the fate of Delranan. She needed Orlek to see that. Or he’d need to be replaced as well. Winning a war was often as simple as having the right people in the right position. She wasn’t afraid to make desperate changes when the situation called for it.

  “Orlek, we need to strike now, while Harnin is still on his heels. You’ve seen how pitifully the patrols go about their work when they actually come down from the Keep,” she insisted. “We can break them; perhaps even steal some away in the process. These aren’t the regular Wolfsreik. They are part-time soldiers at best. We can win, Orlek, but we need to move quickly to secure our gains. I hate to think all I did was for nothing.”

  “No one would ever accuse you of such, but your idea is mad. I don’t care if all he has is the reserves, they are still trained, professional soldiers. What fighters we have cannot win a stand-up fight. We’ll be destroyed. Why can’t you see that? The old council tried to fight head to head and was beaten every time. Only when Argis introduced his hit-and-run raids and ambushes were we moderately successful.”

  “The plague greatly reduced…”

  Orlek shook his head. “The plague didn’t do half as much damage to them as it did to us. Harnin locked his gates the moment he got word of infection. He sent most of his army off into the countryside before they could get infected, Ingrid. His losses are minimal. We need to regroup, draw his army out into the open and break them up into small units. It’s the only way.”

  “What makes you so certain the population will fight with us? They have little reason to get involved with the rebellion that has largely been confined to Chadra. Peasants often tend to ignore the goings-on of city life.”

  She remembered being stationed in various villages and hamlets during her husband’s career. While the villagers respected the presence of the Wolfsreik, they seldom showed appreciation for the drain on their economy the army produced. That atmosphere was burned into her mind, leaving her with grave misgivings as to their willingness to participate in a seemingly pointless struggle for power. Without them, taking the rebellion into the countryside was a pointless endeavor.

  “The people have no will to fight,” she added quickly before he could formulate more opposition. “They are content with their cows or crops. Our problems here simply don’t concern them any more than Badron’s war in Rogscroft.”

  “They also have no reason to support Harnin’s madness. Many families have dealings with Chadra. Surely many more have lost loved ones. Word of the rebellion has spread to every corner of the kingdom by now. We will have the support we need to tear Harnin’s army apart and expose him for the tyrant he is.”

  She knew nothing of Orlek’s past though it didn’t concern her. He had proven himself capable in the field and devoted to the cause. Her cause. Not Inaella’s or the rest of the council. Men like that were important to the future. Ingrid recalled her last conversation with Inaella and how she vowed to burn Chadra to the ground. Recovering Argis’s body changed her mind, if only slightly. There was still hope to be found within the burned-out homes and hovels. She just needed to find a way to inspire it.

  “I can’t move without more information. If we pick up and leave now we’ll be exposed, ripe for the Wolfsreik to sweep in and destroy us without much effort,” she said with finality. Her mind was made up, as was his. They were at odds.

  Hurried footsteps quieted them. Ingrid drew her thin rapier while Orlek picked up his war bar. Close quarter combat was no place for a sword. He much preferred the weight of steel in his hands to crush a skull. Cold winds infiltrated the cracks in the walls, driving chill into the former bedroom. Small piles of snow drifted in the corners. The footsteps grew heavier. Aged boards creaked under the sudden weight. Incessant knocking pounded on the door.

  “Ingrid! We need to leave now. Harnin’s soldiers are coming straight for us!”

  Responding to the urgency in the voice, Ingrid sheathed her sword and flung open the door to find a pair of her most trusted guards breathing heavily in the hallway. Their eyes were wild with fright. Both were breathing hard and had drawn swords.

  “How did they find us?” she seethed. That there would be a traitor in her ranks infuriated her to great ends despite the acceptance that it was inevitable. People changed sides all the time when they thought they stood to benefit from it. Especially during the middle of winter when half of the city had burned to the ground and the other half was starving in the snow. She couldn’t fault them for it, but vowed to make the perpetrator suffer greatly before dying.

  The taller guard shook his head. “We don’t know. One of Malk’s boys spotted an armored patrol marching down the main avenue. Jarrik leads them. They seem to know exactly where we are.”

  “We’ve been betrayed,” Orlek offered needlessly.

  Ingrid ignored him. “Have Lord Argis’s body moved immediately. Take it to the safe house on the eastern edge of Chadra. We will meet you there shortly.”

  “Yes, Ingrid,” the taller man said and bounded back down the hall without waiting for further instructions. The second guard remained to offer protection during their retreat.

  Ingrid collected her bearskin cloak from the back of a chair and draped it around her slender shoulders. “How many are there?”

  “Close to one hundred. There is no way we can fight them,” the guard replied.

  She cursed silently. A handful would be manageable and they could use the Wolfsreik weapons. Unfortunately the guard was correct; she couldn’t tackle a full company with only a handful of under e
quipped, under prepared rebels. The risk was tantamount to suicide. “Have everyone scatter to their fallback positions. I don’t want anyone getting involved unnecessarily. We’ll have need of all our fighters before this runs its course.”

  The guard, reluctant to abandon the leader of the rebellion, nodded and hurried off. There was much to do if the rebellion was to survive.

  * * * * *

  The hooded figure entirely concealed at Jarrik’s side moved with invigorated steps. This was a moment long awaited and only blood could satisfy the debt. Inaella strode through the remains of Chadra with shoulders level, back straight. A shadow of her former self, the plague all but ravaged her physically. She was weak. Most of her hair had fallen out and her eyes had bled so dry she couldn’t stand to be in direct sunlight. Pocks marred her once flawless face, leaving her deformed. Instead of burrowing in and trying to find a place to hide from her pains, Inaella used the pain to build her confidence.

  Going to see Harnin One Eye of her own volition was the first step in what she hoped to be the beginning of a new direction. The rebellion was fundamentally flawed to the point where she allowed it to decay. Argis’s death served to further the degradation but it was her own personal weakness, now excised from the plague, which led to the downfall and eventual usurping by Ingrid. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Ingrid’s youthful face. Every time she closed her eyes she felt nothing but abject hatred for a woman that might have been a friend.

  Naturally Harnin wanted to have her strung up and torn apart on the torture racks but she managed to persuade him otherwise. She offered gifts none of his commanders could. She gave him what remained of the rebellion. The plague stole many things from Inaella, but nothing so severe as the crimes Ingrid committed. For that she would dedicate the rest of her life to ensuring the blond suffered ignobly. Harnin, all too eager to end the rebellion and focus his efforts on preparing Delranan for Badron’s return, accepted.