The Conquerors Shadow

by Ari Marmell

  And then it was all gone: Tyannon, the woods, everything. He was once again riding his horse, his body screaming at him, on a frost-coated road with the sun dipping into the west and the first fires of a huge encampment appearing on the horizon.

  Corvis, the Terror of the East, buried his mottled face in his aching hands and wept.

  THE SAME TENT, enormous enough to encompass an entire cottage and to house a large family in comfort. The same long table, spread with what might as well have been the same papers, accompanied by the same chairs, the same bed, the same iron maiden. The leader of Corvis’s “rescuers” led the mangled prisoner into the tent, bowed once, and departed.

  He’d been abandoned just inside the flap—what would, were the canvas dwelling a more permanent structure, have qualified as the foyer. The chairs were well beyond reach. He had nothing even to lean upon, let alone sit in. But whatever it took, however deeply Corvis dug into the dregs of his strength, he would stand tall. He would show no weakness here, not in front of …

  “By the gods, Lord Rebaine, you look positively dreadful. I’m afraid the months since our last encounter have not been kind to you.”

  “Audriss, with all due respect—which is to say, none at all—can we please cut through the crap?” The warlord’s voice was strong, steady, far more so than it should have been. No weakness. “You and I both know that my condition comes as no surprise to you at all, seeing as you were the one who caused it.”

  “I? It wasn’t I who …” The flat-black mask tilted as the man within examined his adversary. “Ah, the hell with it. Whatever conclusion you’ve come to, you’re welcome to it. I don’t care.” The tendrils of his cloak floated behind him, ghostly streamers wavering in unconscious mimicry of Mithraem’s mists, as he advanced on his prisoner. “Tell me, Rebaine, do you know why you’re here?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And why is that?”

  Corvis smiled through battered lips. “Because I don’t, at the moment, have the strength to run the hell away.”

  The stone helm tilted. “Are you trying to be funny, Rebaine?”

  “What can I say? I’ve been hanging around with Khanda too long. While we’re at it, what are you doing here? From what little I overheard during my stay in your duke’s dungeons, I’d have figured you’d still be trying to take Pelapheron.”

  Despite the obscuring mask, Corvis could actually hear the man scowl. “Yes, I’ll have to admit you won that one on points, Rebaine. Very neat. You cost me more men at Pelapheron than I’d lost in the entire campaign.”

  “So why aren’t you there?”

  “Because Pelapheron isn’t worth it. Oh, I could’ve taken it the next day with little difficulty. The defenders were thinned out and demoralized by Mithraem’s Endless Legion, and your ragtag little army wasn’t about to face them again, either, I assure you. But it would have cost more men, and I think I’ve lost quite enough as it is. We simply moved on.”

  The ache in Corvis’s face couldn’t prevent his jaw dropping in astonishment. “You left an enemy stronghold behind you? Intact? I’ve been battling an idiot!”

  “Hardly.” With a deliberate show of nonchalance, the Serpent strode to the table. He pulled out the nearest chair and sat. “I’d offer you a seat,” he said magnanimously, “but it’s such a chore to clean bloodstains from the upholstery. I’m sure you quite understand.”

  “Quite” was the strained reply between clenched teeth.

  “I’m so glad. Rebaine, Pelapheron is no danger to me. Its forces are shattered, in disarray. They’ve plenty to do without harrying me. Assuming they’re not too busy celebrating my departure, they have rebuilding to do, and it is, after all, the heart of winter. They’re short on food and supplies as it is. No, my friend, I’ve left nothing at my back that could possibly pose a real threat.”

  He didn’t say as much, but Corvis was fairly sure Audriss included his army in that assessment as well.

  “It’s getting late, Audriss, and I’m just a bear if I don’t get a full night’s sleep these days. Why don’t you just get to the point?”

  The Serpent pressed the tips of his fingers together, the green-and-pewter ring flashing in the dancing firelight. “Such bravado, Rebaine. You and I both know it’s taking everything you’ve got to keep from keeling over. Why should I not just keep you standing there until you collapse?”

  “Because you’ve got other entertainments at your disposal. You didn’t waste your time and effort bringing me here to watch me suffer. You could have done that back in the dungeons.”

  “I haven’t the first notion of what you’re talking about,” Audriss said in a monotone, clearly indifferent as to whether the prisoner believed him. “But you’re right. You’re here now for the same reason you were here the first time.”

  Corvis forced a grin. “You’re offering me a partnership again?”

  “Not exactly.” Audriss sighed. “This would have been so much easier if you’d agreed then, Rebaine, but at this point, I don’t need you anymore. What I want from you now is Selakrian’s spellbook.”

  “You wanted it then. Why do you think I’d change my mind now?”

  “Because, my dear Terror, I can do things to you here that will make your experiences over the past few weeks positively joyful by comparison. I have—shall we say, unique?—tools and techniques at my disposal. I can assure you, and I mean this in all modesty, that I will get what I want from you. It is entirely a matter of when.”

  “You’re not impressing me, Audriss.”

  “No, I imagine not.” The warlord snapped a black-gloved finger, and a pair of heavily armored soldiers appeared at the flap. “Take our guest someplace secure. I want to give him the remainder of the night to think.” Audriss’s eyes locked on Corvis’s own. “Rebaine, understand something. I would enjoy nothing better than to see you spend your last days in torment. You’ve caused me no end of problems, and the idea of paying them back in full is more than a little appealing. But I want that book more than I want your blood. You know the power I have available.” He clenched his left hand and held out his fist in emphasis—Corvis’s gaze was drawn, unwillingly, toward the emerald ring. “Work past your bravado, and consider what I—what we—can do to you.”

  Despite himself, Corvis shuddered.

  The Serpent nodded. “Good. I’ll expect an answer by morning. Do try to have a good night, yes?”

  “CORVIS!”

  He struggled upward through a sea of dreams, fighting currents determined to drag him back into the depths of sleep and worlds of the mind, where the light could not reach and the constant pain was nothing but a fading memory of past lives.

  “Corvis!”

  “No,” he mumbled through swollen lips. “Lea’ me ‘lone.”

  “Corvis, wake up!”

  Didn’t they understand? He didn’t want to wake up! This and only this—submerged in the dreaming—was all he had left, his final refuge from the agonizing wounds that were, if Audriss could be believed, merely a prelude to far more unpleasant things to come.

  And besides, the Serpent had promised him until morning, and while the heavy canvas of the tent lacked windows, it was thin enough to show the difference between night and day.

  A tent. The part of Corvis already awake scoffed in disgust. It was a humiliating notion, the thought he was so broken and beaten that Audriss considered a tent, with a single pair of guards outside, sufficient to hold the Terror of the East.

  Almost as humiliating was the fact that Audriss was absolutely right. His wounds still refused to close. Bruises grew darker, rather than fading. Broken bones, aggravated by constant movement, abraded one another as they moved within him, and would not heal.

  He’d begun to wonder if he wasn’t dying. And, finally, to wonder if it wasn’t for the best.

  And then, that voice, tugging at him through the layer of slumber into which he’d deliberately burrowed. He tried to swat it away, like an offending bug, and the pain lancing th
rough his arm did more to awaken him than the constant urgings of the invisible stranger.

  “Corvis! Gods damn it, Corvis, wake up!”

  “I’m awake!” he finally hissed, curled tightly around his aching arm, teeth clenched against the scream of pain trying to burst from his throat.

  “Gods, Corvis, you look awful! What did they do to you?”

  “What didn’t they do to me?” he grumbled bitterly, eyes dancing as they struggled to pierce the darkness within the tent. “Where are you? Who are you? What the hell do you want with—”

  “Corvis, it’s me!”

  The voice finally sank into his sleep-fogged brain. “Seilloah?”

  “In the flesh. Umm, so to speak.”

  “Gods, how did you get here? Where—”

  “I’m not actually here, Corvis. And don’t step back. You’ll crush my proxy.”

  “Your …” Corvis froze as something small and hairy brushed his ankle. “You’re talking to me through a rat?”

  “Best I could do, Corvis,” Seilloah whispered via the rodent. “It needed to be small and inconspicuous, and I don’t have Rheah Vhoune’s way with bugs.”

  “Seilloah, rats can’t talk. How are you—”

  “Corvis,” she replied patiently, “listen to yourself. Are you telling me you’ve no problem accepting the fact that I can mind-control a rat, but it bothers you that I can make it speak?”

  “I guess,” he rasped around a bloody cough, “it is sort of silly, isn’t it?”

  “Gods, Corvis,” Seilloah said softly, “you’re a mess. I’m so sorry you—”

  “Don’t. It was my choice, not yours.” He took a deep breath, hawked, and spat the last of the clinging gunk from his throat. “What happens now?”

  “Now we get you out of here.”

  Corvis shook his head, wincing as the movement brought a new surge of agony. “Seilloah, we can’t risk the men it would take to stage a rescue.”

  “I’m not talking about a rescue. I’m talking about an escape.”

  “Seilloah, look at me. I don’t even know …” He swallowed as the thought well and truly hit home. “I don’t even know if I’ll survive much longer, even without Audriss’s tender ministrations. I can barely stand. There’s not a chance—”

  “I can heal you.”

  “What?” In his incredulity, Corvis allowed his voice to rise. He collapsed, feigning sleep, as the flap shot open and one of the guards thrust a head and a small lantern into the tent. The man, flat-featured and ugly as an ogre’s wedding, glared irritably at the prisoner, who appeared to be mumbling and crying out in his sleep. Grinning a browned and gap-toothed grin at the misery within, the guard withdrew.

  Corvis watched the flap through narrowed lids until he was sure the ape was gone. “Seilloah,” he resumed, whispering softly, “how? These injuries … well, lesser wounds have proved beyond you in the past, and that was when you could actually touch your patient. Trying to do this while you’re channeling through a proxy is insane! You’ll hurt yourself!”

  “I did not,” she told him simply, “have you dragged all the way back here to let you die at the Serpent’s feet. We’ll take it slow, we’ll take it careful, and we’ll make do.”

  “Have me dragged … Seilloah, what are you—”

  “Later! Now don’t move.”

  Corvis opened his mouth to protest, and froze as he felt something warm and furry with sharp claws crawling down the back of his shirt. “Seilloah—”

  “I need contact, Corvis. Just relax.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  There was a pause. “Corvis, I’m afraid this won’t be pleasant. I have to be slow and methodical about this, heal one injury at a time. Things are going to move.”

  “Fabulous.” Corvis took a deep breath, held it, exhaled slowly. “Let’s do this.”

  The process was “not pleasant” in the same way Sunder was “a little sharp.” Over the next two hours, some mad sculptor among the gods shoved his hands through Corvis’s body, rearranged the damp clay of his innards, and then proceeded to jump up and down on them. Splinters of rib embedded in the flesh of his chest gradually worked themselves free, sliding back into place like homesick worms and melding together with sudden bursts of heat. Scabs and scars forming over improperly treated wounds shredded themselves as flesh and muscle flowed around them. And he not only felt, but heard the tectonic grinding as the broken bones worked themselves around to their normal positions, to bond with neighboring fragments. Had there been any source of light in the tent, Corvis was certain he would have seen bulges and protrusions writhing across his limbs. His cheeks spasmed as the bruising and swelling faded; his eye, swollen and crusted shut for so many days, finally opened.

  Fists clenched and teeth gritted, gurgling in the back of his throat, Corvis endured.

  Finally, it was done. Corvis Rebaine lay on the canvas floor, the contours of the ground below him uncomfortable beneath his weight. He was exhausted, as tired as he could ever remember, and his whole body ached terribly.

  But for the first time in what seemed an eon, he could breathe without pain. He could move without agony as his constant companion. He could see with both eyes—or could have, had it not been pitch-black around him—and hear with both ears. Tentatively, he stood, and when he stumbled halfway up, his body threatening to fall, it was due only to fatigue. Tears—the only ones he’d cried in years, save for those he’d shed during his fever-induced hallucinations—gathered in the corners of his eyes as he fully registered that the pain was gone.

  “Seilloah,” he said softly, “I thought I’d never—”

  “Corvis, don’t.”

  He smiled quietly in the darkness. “Thank you.” Then, a bit more urgently, “Are you all right? The strain of that spell …”

  “Is beyond your imagination,” she told him, and Corvis couldn’t ignore the tremor in her voice. “I’m going to miss muster tomorrow morning,” she told him. “I assume you don’t have a problem with that?”

  “Uh, no. No problem.”

  “Good. I’d hate to have to kill whoever you sent to find me. Corvis, Khanda and Sunder are in Audriss’s tent. I don’t think you’ll be able to—”

  “Without Khanda, we’ve no chance. Relax, Seilloah. You’ve done your part. Now I have to do mine.”

  “Corvis, you’re not exactly at your best. You’re tired, your body’s been through some incredible stress, and—”

  The warlord yanked open the tent flap and reached out. From the rat’s point of view, a sudden burst of movement was followed by two gasps of shock, and then a single wet crunch as the guards’ skulls met and made every effort to merge. Framed in the light of the moon, the silhouette turned back to the wide-eyed rodent.

  “No, Seilloah, I’m not at full strength. But I’m a bloody sight closer than anyone expects me to be. I’m not going to do anything stupid, but I am going to make damn certain that Audriss recognizes his mistake.”

  “And what mistake would that be?”

  “He got the Terror of the East very, very upset.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Marching beneath the bear-and-crown flapping weakly in the errant breeze, Lorum, Duke of Taberness and Regent Proper of Imphallion, passed through the broken gates of Denathere. Surrounded as he was by scores of soldiers, most of whom likely thought he was an idiot for entering the city at all, he found it difficult to see the devastation around him, even from atop his spirited mount. Nathaniel Espa rode to one side of him, Rheah Vhoune to the other, and all seemed subdued into silence by the weight of what they saw.

  For hours that felt like minutes—or perhaps minutes that dragged like hours—Lorum surveyed the broken, ravished, and desecrated body of what had been Imphallion’s second greatest city. Men, women, and children who would never again rise, never laugh or cry or work, lay scattered about the wreckage of once magnificent temples and ancient halls that were very nearly as irreplaceable.

  And Lorum, who
had already seen too much of the horrors of war for his age, found his tears evaporated by the growing heat of his fury. Soldiers and emissaries appeared and disappeared through the wall of guards, delivering reports and making requests, and the regent’s expression grew ever harsher, ever more brittle. Abruptly he spun his warhorse with a terribly cry and broke into a gallop, practically trampling his own guards before they dived desperately from his path. Espa ordered the soldiers to remain while he and the sorceress followed.

  Some streets away, in an alley almost blocked by Lorum’s anxious horse, they found him. He stood at the end of the filthy byway, where even the stench of human misery nearby had not overwhelmed the reek of rotting garbage, slamming his fist over and over into a broken stone wall until blood began to leak through the joints in his steel gauntlet.

  “Your Grace?” Rheah began, sliding from her horse and moving down the alley, Espa two steps behind. “I know that this is horrible, but you need—”

  “Horrible, Rheah? Is that what this is?” The young regent spun, and where the sorceress and the knight expected tears, they found a jaw clenched in murderous rage. “I think it’s a damn sight more than horrible!”

  “I understand, Your Grace,” Espa said gruffly. “This is among the worst I’ve seen. But it’s over. Rebaine’s fled. He—”

  “You don’t understand.” Lorum sighed and slumped back against the wall, staring at something over their heads that only he could see. “This isn’t about the bodies and the burning and the destruction, Nathaniel. I’ve seen enough of that in this godsdamn war.”

  “Then what—?” Rheah began.

  “It didn’t have to happen!” Lorum leaned forward, gesticulating with his right hand before clutching it painfully to his chest. “We’ve known he was heading this way for weeks, maybe months! If the damn Guilds hadn’t dragged their feet, if they’d bloody well let us—let me,” he corrected with a glance at Espa’s glower, “take command when we should have, we could have intercepted him before now!”