Nether Kingdom

by J. Edward Neill

  Be what they expect you to be.

  Remember what you did for the Furyons.

  At midday, he shambled across the clearing. Unctulu gnawed on strips of overcooked horseflesh and Thresher stood still as death. Unctulu tossed him a strip of meat, and he chewed the loathsome scrap with a scowl, his only pleasure the fresh water he scooped from a nearby pond. Unctulu spoke none save to gibber complaints beneath his breath, while Thresher stared southward, able to see despite his eyeless iron mask.

  Not long after he washed the final sliver of meat down his gullet, he heard Thresher creak and swivel. The iron monster gazed to the southwest. Toward the deep woods. No doubt we’re headed that way. Unctulu punctuated his faceless companion’s movement by hurling a stone against Thresher’s armored shoulder, birthing a clang that startled all the nearby birds.

  “Was that necessary?” Archmyr stood.

  “It worked, no?” Unctulu grinned. “You’re ready to go.”

  I’m ready…to be rid of you.

  If he disliked his new companions, he soon learned there were greater things to despise.

  That day, the march to Romaldar continued in earnest. Unctulu and Thresher set a faster pace than seemed possible, content to use the lowest ruts and most tangled forest corridors as their road. He kept up well enough, being of greater fitness than either of his guides, but his state of mind was such that each hour seemed to last forever.

  He walked, climbed, and sweat. He was bored at first, his mind gone rigid, but by the time the afternoon cooled and evening set in, his thoughts wandered. Dark columns of shadow lined the forest floor, strips of darkness beneath the trees. He found himself walking in the gloom, stalking from shadow to shadow as though the evening light would scald him. Anyone else might relish living again, he imagined. But here I am, the same as before.

  Doomed to repeat myself.

  His feeling lasted a day.

  And then a week.

  And then a fortnight.

  Sleeping or awake, every hour he endured felt no different than the one before. He walked and slept and ate and dreamed, but none of it mattered. For their part, Unctulu and Thresher rarely troubled him, but he hated them no less for it. Thresher never speaks, never eats, and never breathes, he reckoned. And ‘Tulu, the worm…can’t speak a word without drooling or spitting.

  Neither friends nor enemies, these two.

  Just means to an end.

  After sixteen miserable days of rising at noon, marching until well after midnight, and always, always avoiding contact with every village in the forest, he reached the ends of Grandwood. The openness of the south came upon him without warning, as the tree line came to a halt against a wide, wind-blasted grassland. The hour was mid-afternoon. When he stepped out from beneath Grandwood’s final row of trees, he cracked a quarter-smile.

  Graehelm is almost behind me.

  Grey clouds swam across the sky. A light mist fell, peppering him, cool enough to drive back the feverish feeling beneath his skin. The landscape here was far different than in the north, far less familiar than the realms he had set to burning before his death.

  “The Grae hinterlands,” Unctulu burbled. “The Roma border is two days from here.”

  “That way?” He pointed to a row of sharp-crested hills beyond which mountains loomed.

  “Nay. That’s Yrul. We’re going southwest. That way.”

  He looked where the fat fiend pointed. The pastures undulated in the writhing wind, the grass seeming to stretch into forever. Shallow streamlets slithered down from the sharp hills and carved their way through the fields, many of them emptying into mirror-faced lakes.

  “Quiet here,” he remarked. “And flat. Reminds me of home. Reminds me…of Thillria.”

  Unctulu smirked. “Thillria. Live a bit longer, and you’ll see it again.”

  Compared to the prison of Grandwood, the prairies called to him. He wandered into the grass, his pale palms open to the rain.

  Tugging the tired horse behind him, Unctulu cut him off and stuck him in the chest with two crabbed fingers. “Hold.” The fiend licked his lips. “We go no further, not until nightfall.”

  He shielded his nose with his forearm, keeping the stench of Unctulu’s breath at bay. “Afraid the Graefolk might see us? What about food? Unless you plan to cook your last horse, we’ll have to talk to someone. I need to eat.”

  “Yes, yes. Fresh meat,” said Unctulu. “We need it, and you, Pale One, will be the one to fetch it for us. Thresh can’t go, and the prairie people aren’t quite ready for a beauty like mine. Yes, it’ll be you. You’ll take our coin to the nearest village. We’re near enough to the border; they’ll accept Roma’s mint. But not until dusk, not until night comes. Until then, we go back to the trees.”

  Unctulu plucked a pouch from a bag on the horse’s flank. He grinned grotesquely, dropping the pouch like a stone into Archmyr’s hand. “Take this. Come nightfall, you’ll take the horse and coin west along the treeline. You’ll find two cities: one grand and garrisoned with Grae-soldiers, the other a ripe little farm-hole where the army stores its foodstuffs. Stay away from the big city. Go to the little one. Buy us as much food as our ugly little horse will hold. Bring it all back before dawn, or Thresh’ll be after you. Consider this a test. Pass it, and gain a pebble of trust. Fail, and we’ll haul you to Roma in pieces.”

  Having endured Unctulu’s threats too many times already, he stared hard at the squat, stinking man. “It may be that I decide to serve your master.” He closed his fingers like claws around the coin pouch. “But if you threaten me again, it may also be that Thresh and I continue alone to Romaldar.”

  Unctulu stretched his mouth into a smile and tugged the horse back beneath the trees. Thresher followed, indifferent to everything, taking station beside a massive, grey-barked oak. Archmyr shot a cold stare at both of them. The old me would wait until dark and cut their throats in the moonlight. But the new me…they’re lucky. I’ve no swords. And does Thresh even have a throat?

  He touched his waist where his swords used to be. He remembered the Thillrian blades he had once carried. Silver steel. He longed to hold them again. I’m naked without them.

  Hungry and miserable, he lurked at the forest’s edge until dusk. The clouded day drooped into a murky night, the air moist with somnambulant fog from the dozen nearby lakes. Out in the meadows, the lights of Grae farmhouses winked to life, the lanterns and hearths accumulating like clusters of stars.

  He sat among the oaks, removed from Unctulu and Thresher. He pondered a hundred fates, one for each direction he might flee into the night. His gazed into the darkness, searching for escape, and yet each time he dreamed of stealing Unctulu’s coins and running, he came to the same dismal conclusion.

  This is enemy territory. The Grae might’ve forgotten my face, but I’ll find no peace living among them.

  It’ll be the same everywhere I go.

  He shut his eyes and dreamed of the places he might flee to. In Furyon, he knew he would be reckoned a traitor, the cause of much suffering in the campaign against Graehelm. In Thillria, he wondered if his people would even remember him, but when he recalled his deeds as a reviled bandit, pirate, and murderer-for-hire, he knew the answer. Painted with the broad brush of all he had done, he let his body go limp. The evils of his younger days spoiled any hope for the present.

  There’s but one path.

  The road of continuance.

  Calmer than before, he rose from his meditations and strode to Unctulu, who sat upon a bank of moss as though it were a throne. He stood before the fiend and held out his open hands, and when he spoke his voice was as he remembered before his death: low, forbidding, as smooth as spider’s silk.

  “When will I have my swords?” He regarded his empty hands. “I require two. I prefer them long and light, no curves, no adornments, each as straight as a moonbeam. It’ll be hard to impress your master without them. When will they be forged?”

  Unctulu ran a finger down his flabby c
heek. “Ah, questions. I wondered when you’d ask. You want your blades. You’re useless without them. We hoped you might be so patient as to wait til Archaeus.”

  “Archaeus?” He frowned. “What, or where, is that?”

  “The seat of Roma’s power.” Unctulu smirked. “The castle by the lake. We’ve weaponsmiths there, and we’ve materials without equal. If you can resist the urge to kill for a few weeks more, you’ll have your swords. Be patient. Be calm.”

  Presuming Unctulu’s promises were lies, he grimaced. “If you‘ll not arm me, perhaps you’ll at least answer me this.”

  “Yes?” Unctulu gurgled.

  “Who won the war? I’ve not heard you mention it.”

  “War? Which war is that?”

  “The Furyon invasion. These people, this land, it looks untouched. You’ve kept me away from civilization. I’ve seen neither blue standards nor black and red. Did the Furyon Emperor succeed? Does he rule only in the north? Or did the Grae somehow drive back the horde?”

  Unctulu grinned. “Well, well. I might’ve known you’d ask. Proud is the Pale Hand, wanting to know the fruits of his slaughter. You’ll be sad to know it was the Graefolk who won the day. All your treachery withered in the end, or did it? Seems you may’ve been the one responsible for Furyon’s failure. The little princeling who laid you in your grave turned out to be the same fellow who rallied the Grae armies. Yes, yes…t’was Rellen Gryphon who met the Furies east of Mooreye and slaughtered them to a man. If you’d killed the little boy, the entire course of history might have twisted and turned and come to something else. You might never have died. I might never have been plucked from my grave. I suppose I should thank you. Oh, and I do, I do, from the wee bottom of my heart.” Laughing again, Unctulu leaked a foaming glob of spittle at Archmyr’s feet.

  “Gryphon.” He tried in vain to recall his killer’s face. “I don’t remember him.”

  “You might ask our Master.” Unctulu shrugged. “It was he who saw the Gryphon boy last. Stuck him two times good in the ribs. Left him to drain like a twice-shot rabbit.”

  He turned a hard cheek at the grinning fiend. Any thought of avenging his first death cooled, turned to ice with the knowledge that the princeling was already dead. Another piece of life I’ve no power to control.

  “Forgetting something?” said Unctulu.

  He felt the weight of the coin pouch upon his waist. “Food,” he murmured. “It’s time.”

  “That’s right. Take the horse. Fill the packs. Be back by dawn.” Unctulu glanced to Thresher and back, promising violence with a smile. “Remember, this is your test. I assure you; for as much as you might hate Thresh and me, you’ll find in Roma a much better life. The Master will reward you. All you must do is obey.”

  He lowered his head and inhaled the night.

  Do it, Degiliac, he told himself. For once in your life, serve.

  He took the pack horse’s reins and departed westward along the trees, skirting the forest’s edge. No stars dotted the eve, nor any hint of Mother Moon. He guided himself using only the low luminescence of the villages in the meadow. Indescribably relieved to be away from Unctulu and Thresher, he ambled along as though his walk were for leisure’s sake, whispering his darkest thoughts into the horse’s twitching ear.

  We’ll butcher them yet.

  Just wait until we get our swords.

  How long he walked, he could not say, but it seemed the night was still young when he reached the cities Unctulu had promised. The town and the fortress looked like father and son, the fortress’s towers spearing the night sky, the village below hunkered peacefully in the fields. Ardenn, he plucked the fortress’s name from a dark corner of his memory. And this little city below, ripe with grain, livestock, and fresh maidens for the soldiers.

  He rounded a thicket of oaks and stood before Ardenn and its vassal. Mighty walls, crenellated and patrolled, circled Ardenn proper, while ripening fields of barley and wheat surrounded the lower village. The grass shivered as he walked between the fields, and the lantern lights swayed to the beck of a humid wind. Unsure of how he would be received, he approached the village outskirts, all the while conjuring a story to explain his presence.

  The closer he came, the more he realized the village was largely asleep. Its doors were shut, the lights in the windows winking out even as he approached. He adjusted swiftly to the deepening darkness, spying several mounted sentries, most of them gazing sleepily toward Yrul.

  Walk right up to them.

  Better to be in plain sight than to sneak.

  He walked a narrow path between two barley fields and approached a lone guard, a mounted man keeping watch beside a lantern post. Before his death, he would have killed the guard. I’d have slit his throat, stolen his sword and crossbow, and set the fields ablaze just for fun.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight he blew in like a cool draught of midnight wind, alerting the sentry with a cluck of his tongue.

  “Who goes?” The guard spun on his horse and drew his sword halfway from its sheath.

  Archmyr held out his open hands. He nodded to his pack horse, patting the beast on its backside for good measure. “Friend,” he said, “I journey into Grandwood on the morrow. I’m told it’s a long voyage to the north prairies, more so if one has no skill in hunting. I’m here in search of food. They say you’ve grain and smoked meats. I have much coin. Roma mint, if it should matter.”

  He expected the guard to take one look at his pale face, black hair, and dark eyes, and put a sword straight to his neck.

  “Not from Yrul are you? Nor Roma neither.” The guard laughed and put away his blade. “Too short for Yrul, too tall for Roma. So where is it now? Where do you come from?”

  “Triaxe,” he lied, quick as smooth as a serpent. “On my way to Mooreye. Name’s Degiliac, Nolo Degiliac.”

  The guard sidled nearer on his steed, smiling all the way. “Might be wasting your time, Nolo. I heard Mooreye was sacked. Burned to a crisp during the war.”

  “It was.” Archmyr nodded. “Its lord was killed and its people driven away. My cousin…she was there with her husband when it happened. Our family never heard back. We worry, so of course they’ve send me with but a half a pack of food. This is my luck, out here in the summer heat, roasting by day, starving by night.”

  “There’s always a cousin, ain’t there?” The guard shook his head as though to apologize. “Well then, the provisioners are closed for the night, but they’ll be open early tomorrow. You might as well pick an inn and catch a nap til sunrise.”

  “An inn, you say?”

  “Aye. We’ve two. Crickets’ Coffin and Old Madame Bombeezles. They’ve both got leaky roofs, but the rain is done for the night, I think.”

  “Crickets’ Coffin.” He nodded. “I like that name.”

  Nodding with false appreciation, he led the tired pack horse past the guard. He pretended to be exhausted and hardly in a hurry. For a few breaths, he thought he had heard the last of it, but ten steps beyond the lantern post, the guard called after him.

  “Take care, Ser Nolo. Mind you behave yourself. We’re quick to make friends in these parts, but willing to stretch necks when it comes to it.”

  “Aye,” he called back. “No trouble from me.”

  Not tonight anyhow.

  Wolfwolde

  On his second night in Romaldar, Archmyr awoke to the sound of his name being uttered.

  The hour was well past midnight, and he stirred to sluggish consciousness, vaguely aware of a distant dialogue in the glooms beyond his tent. His head felt foggy with half-finished dreams, his hair hanging loose and damp across his eyes. Unsure of whether to eavesdrop or return to a sleep that was fitful at best, he stretched his arms and sat up in the dark.

  His curiosity got the better of him.

  Red-eyed and scowling, he crawled from his tent and into the open. Unctulu’s miserable little fire crackled and popped in the humid air. The clouds inked out the stars, and the earth was d
amp with the recent rain. Grunting, he stepped into his boots and ambled to the center of the camp. He saw Thresher, cold and motionless, but Unctulu was nowhere to be found.

  “Where’s the maggot?” he mumbled to Thresher, knowing he would get no answer.

  He heard voices in the darkness beyond the camp. The buzz of the conversation him drifted to his ears the same as a cold ocean’s breeze carrying inland. Wishing he had his swords, he slinked through the grass to the camp’s edge. He sloshed through a puddle, and Unctulu’s spherical lamp flared to life before his eyes.

  “Ah.” Unctulu’s swollen face looked whiter than a corpse. “So sharp an ear, or is it the sleeplessness? I thought you might hear us, Pale One. Come then. Join us.”

  He swallowed back his bile and gazed over Unctulu’s shoulder. Two men lurked at the edge of the lamplight. Visitors, he reckoned. They weren’t here an hour ago.

  “So, this is him?” One of the men ogled him.

  “Yes.” Unctulu raised his lamp. “The Pale Knight, king among murderers, here in all his glory.”

  Archmyr guessed at a glance that the two men were soldiers in the service of Unctulu’s so-called Master. They had broadswords strapped to their shoulders and polished scales of articulated steel enshrouding their arms, their chests, and their legs. The two cut rather imposing figures, especially in the eerie light of Unctulu’s lamp. Their gazes were slitted, their jaws clenched, while their black tabards were embroidered with images of grinning wolves.

  I’ve known men like these, he thought. I’ve led these sorts…and killed them.

  The warriors were less than wolves, but they dressed the part. They wore shaggy scraps of wolf pelts around their waists, wrists, and ankles, and necklaces made of wolf teeth about their collars.

  Wolves. He smirked. “Friends of yours?” He looked at Unctulu.